The Fire and the Rose
by MetroRhos
Summary: A potions accident leads to an unexpected meeting of minds.
1. The Accident

**The Fire and the Rose**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_. 

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

_... the end of all our exploring  
will be to arrive where we started  
and know the place for the first time_

TS Eliot - Little Gidding 

"Hermione," Neville hissed, "what do I do now?" Hermione slid a glance across to her lab partner, resisting the temptation to roll her eyes. The year had barely started and already it seemed - although it would have been stupid to think otherwise - that Neville was not going to do any better in Potions this year than he had in the previous six. It was going to be a long year. 

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr Longbottom." Snape's voice cut through her thoughts with its usual incision. "Miss Granger, try to let Mr Longbottom at least attempt one unaided action this year. It would be too much to expect him to actually achieve anything," the acid was as sharp as ever, "but we should perhaps give him the opportunity to try." 

Hermione vaguely turned her attention back to the potion in front of them, her mind elsewhere - they were finally officially making Polyjuice Potion, and she didn't need to follow too closely; her experience in the second year had seared the details into her mind. 

She gazed around the classroom, idly watching the other students with their varying degrees of concentration as she waited for her potion to come back to a rolling boil. The summer holiday, and her 18th birthday, already seemed a long time ago - she occasionally wondered whether there was any point to holidays; the moment they were over it seemed as if they had never happened. The same routine, the same people, and nothing much changed. 

Hermione felt Neville concentrating furiously next to her, and heard him muttering under his breath. She caught only the odd word but, suddenly, realised that he was about to make another mistake - he shouldn't be adding boomslang skin now, she thought. His potion was nothing like the colour it should be at the stage where he'd need to add that, and she could see his hand hesitantly moving towards the cauldron with a pinch of the shredded skin. 

She looked round surreptitiously and couldn't see Snape. "Neville," now it was her turn to whisper furiously, "don't -" 

"Don't what, Miss Granger?" Her heart sank. He was standing behind her; no wonder she hadn't been able to see him. 

"Well, Miss Granger - please, share it with the rest of us. I'm sure it was vital?" 

Hermione looked down at the cauldron in front of her, thinking frantically through a list of excuses and reasons but she waited just a little too long. 

"P-Professor, it was my -" 

"Silence, Longbottom. If I want your contribution I will ask for it." 

The next moments stretched past in slow motion; Hermione would have sworn that they filled at least an hour, when she thought about it later. Snape had bellowed at Neville - much as he did in every lesson - and Neville had jumped. He dropped the boomslang skin in panic, scattering it over the flames below the cauldron. The resulting firecracking pops had everyone in the room diving for cover. Neville backed away in horror, bumping against a nearby set of shelves. 

The cascade of ingredients to the floor, to the desks and into Neville's cauldron seemed to take forever; Hermione fell backwards against Snape, trying to avoid the gas that bubbled up from the now-adulterated potion. He swept his robes around her, trying to protect them both from the fumes. 

Hermione was never entirely clear what happened next; all she knew was that suddenly she was drenched in a ice-cold mixture that burned through her robes and Snape's. The cold seemed to freeze her thoughts and actions for a moment, and her vision blurred. 

When she could see again, the classroom seemed oddly distorted, as though she was standing on the desk. All around her was a sea of chaos; whilst the potion hadn't splattered far, the wreckage caused by students taking cover was impressive. She looked down. Then she blinked. When she opened her eyes, she looked down again. 

The view hadn't changed. She was looking at herself, huddled against ... against herself? That didn't make any sense. For a moment, Hermione wondered whether she had died and was having an out-of-body experience. She'd always dismissed the reports of such experiences as nonsense but, perhaps, there was something to them. The return of feeling put paid to that thought, though. She was definitely corporeal; the chill on her skin where the potion had made contact was proof of that. 

Hermione looked down again, trying to make sense of the fact that she could see her own body - a body that was now looking up at her with horror in its eyes. Slowly, very slowly, she began to realise what had happened as she took in the fact that the hands holding her body up were clearly under her control. They were, though, very definitely not the hands she had woken up with this morning. Long tapered fingers, large-knuckled and strong. These were not her hands. 

They were Snape's hands. She'd watched them preparing a demonstration in class often enough to be familiar with them. She had Snape's hands ... no, she corrected herself. She had Snape's body. 

"Uhh ..." The voice was all wrong; it reverberated through her, an octave lower than she would expect. Oh god, it was Snape's body. Her mind froze, trying to process the conflicting thoughts and responses surging through her. All around her, the students were slowly getting up from under desks and from behind chairs, looking curiously towards her - towards them - no, her, him ... too much. An urgent whisper, in an unfamiliarly familiar voice reached her. 

"Dismiss them!" Hermione blinked, wondering whether she usually sounded that sharp and shrill before realising what she - no, he - oh, hell, whatever. 

"Class dismissed! If any of you are hurt, go to the Infirmary!" Hermione tried to snap, hoping for at least some of Snape's authority and willing the class to be too pleased to leave early for anyone to question why their Potions Master had suddenly developed a tremor in his voice. 

"P-Professor Snape, do you want me to stay and -" 

"Get out, Longbottom!" she snapped. That was easier to manage, and there was something rather satisfying about being able to get rid of him without having to worry about dealing with his hurt feelings later. 

The room emptied rapidly, a stream of black robes and bookbags making their way eagerly through the doors. Moments later, Hermione and Snape were alone in the classroom. Hermione watched Snape disentangle himself - herself - from their robes and take a step back, looking up at her as he folded his arms across his chest. He looked disconcerted as he realised that wasn't quite as easy to do any longer. 

Hermione bit back a grin as he let his arms drop to the sides; she was suddenly absurdly cheered by the realisation that he was not finding this any easier than she was. 

"What the hell did that fool Longbottom do?" Hermione wondered whether her voice always sounded like that - she was sure it was lower-pitched. Dragging her thoughts from the circumstances she concentrated instead on the more immediate problem: what had been in the potion when it exploded over them, and how were they going to undo the effects? 

"I don't know, Professor," she answered, watching him blink at the sound of his own voice calling him by his title. "Do you have anything that will reverse this?" 

Even before she had finished the question she could see him shaking his - her - damnit, his head. "Since I don't know what 'this' is, Miss Granger, I don't have any solution for the problem right now. There were over 100 ingredients on the shelf which Mr Longbottom managed to demolish so easily - it would take more than our joint lifetimes to test all the potential combinations he could have created. This particular effect is not one I have encountered before; there is something rather ironic about the fact that Mr Longbottom appears to have created an entirely new potion when he is incapable of creating even the simplest established ones." 

"You seem to be handling this well, Professor," said Hermione. Her comment was punctuated by a snort of laughter from Snape. 

"Falling apart would serve no useful purpose, Miss Granger. However, you can be reassured that I am not finding this any more comfortable than you, I suspect. It is ... disorienting, to put it mildly. No doubt we will begin to get used to it." 

'Disorienting'. It was a good enough word for it, Hermione supposed. 'Weird as hell' was more like it, though, she thought. 

"So ... " Hermione stretched the word out as she worked her way through the implications, "you mean, we're stuck like this. I'm you, you're me and ... oh god, I have to take my NEWTs in June!" 

"Trust me, Miss Granger, I have no desire whatsoever to remain in your body until next June - and still less desire to sit the NEWTs again. Although I suppose it would ensure that you achieved an exemplary Potions grade." 

At that point Hermione realised that Snape was finding this as difficult as she was - the distraction in his voice as he seized the tangential thought was evidence enough. Anything to avoid having to think about the problem directly. They needed to take the problem to someone else - someone unaffected. 

"Dumbledore." Hermione wondered if she'd been thinking aloud until she realised that although she'd heard her own voice, it was Snape who had spoken; he'd obviously come to the same conclusion. 

They left the classroom in a hurry, both awkwardly adjusting to unfamiliar strides; Snape almost stumbled as Hermione's shorter legs failed to keep up with his habitual speed. Behind them, the silver-grey potion that was Neville Longbottom's sole contribution to the art and science of potion making dripped gently from the cracked cauldron onto the desk below. 


	2. The Meeting With Dumbledore

**The Fire and the Rose Part 2**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_. 

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Hermione slumped dejectedly in one of Dumbledore's big squashy armchairs, watching herself pace the room. 

Their trip up from the dungeons had been an awkward affair. Fortunately that part of the school was rarely thronged with students, but the few they had seen had given them quizzical looks. Eventually, Snape had come to an abrupt halt, nearly causing Hermione to cannon into him. She hadn't quite got the rhythm of the longer stride, and was feeling a little as if she was suddenly being expected to walk on stilts. 

"For heaven's sake, girl," had come the vicious whisper, the voice still sounding odd to her ears. "Don't droop along behind like that. Hurry up. And walk as if you mean it. You're supposed to be a master of this school." 

She hadn't felt like pointing out that he had shoved his way in front, as usual. Swallowing the resentment, telling herself that Dumbledore would sort it out, she had tried to straighten herself up, and walk more like Snape. 

They had started off again. Snape was obviously trying to persuade her, shorter, legs to match his accustomed pace. The effect had been to give her a rather unflattering waddle, she thought. She had concentrated for a couple more paces and then given up. 

She had waited for a couple of curious Slytherins to pass, and then hissed "Professor!" 

He had paused, and turned to glare at her. Somehow, coming from her own eyes, it had not been as bad. 

"Maybe I should go in front?" she had suggested diffidently. "As I'm supposed to be a master of this school." 

The answering look had been pure poison, but he had gestured for her to precede him. They had continued at a slightly more sedate pace which, ironically, had been easier for both of them to cope with. 

They had arrived at the headmaster's office in brittle, hostile silence. 

She dragged her mind back to the awful present. She noted that at least Snape's calm finally appeared to be giving way as his pacing increased. She wasn't certain if she was reassured by that or not, but on balance she felt that it was only fair that he should be suffering as well. After all, if he hadn't been terrorising Neville none of this would have happened. She decided that placing the blame at Snape's door _did_ make her feel better. 

The slightly surreal effect of observing her own movements was beginning to wear off and was being replaced with a series of thoughts which highlighted the hideous practical consequences of the accident. She wriggled herself into a more upright position, awkwardly adjusting the longer legs and torso which still didn't quite feel reliably under her control. 

Snape had ceased pacing, and was now standing directly in front of the headmaster, leaning on the desk and glaring. Dumbledore's face was grave, but his eyes twinkled with obvious amusement at the sight of the Gryffindor head girl glaring with pure Snape-ish ferocity. 

"Well, well," he mused. "You two do seem to have got yourselves into a bit of a predicament haven't you?" 

"With respect, headmaster," bit off Snape, managing to infuse Hermione's voice with a near-normal degree of venom, "_I_ did absolutely nothing to contribute to this situation." 

Hermione stifled a snort at this. A deep, baritone noise issued from the depths of the armchair. It occurred to her that Snape's voice was very well suited to snorting. 

Both... men, she supposed, for want of a better description of Snape right now... turned to look at her. 

"Did you have something to add, Miss Granger?" enquired Snape silkily. Except that he hadn't quite got the knack of doing that with her voice yet. Hermione's lighter, mid-soprano simply didn't _do_ silky. It sounded closer to sulky, she thought. Snape clearly also thought the same, as he grimaced. 

Dumbledore's amusement transferred itself from his eyes to his mouth. 

"This promises to be most... ah... interesting," he commented, reaching for a small silver dish on the desk in front of him. "Sherbert lemon, anyone?" 

"Again, with respect headmaster, I hardly think that this is the moment for sherbert lemons." Snape's voice had begun to carry an edge of real distress. For once Hermione wholeheartedly agreed with him. There was a large part of this that was not at all funny. 

"Well, perhaps you're right," conceded the headmaster, putting down the sweet dish. "On a more serious note, how long do you think that it will take you to find an antidote to this? Or do you think that it will wear off in time?" 

Hermione felt a sudden burst of hope. Polyjuice Potion was only supposed to last about an hour. Perhaps they would be back in their own bodies by the end of the evening. Off to her side, Snape sighed, and began to run his hand through his hair. He snatched it away as he realised that the hair in question extended well below his shoulders. 

"Given that it is presently impossible to identify which ingredient, or combination of ingredients, is responsible for this... condition..." he gestured disdainfully at Hermione's body, "the prospects of identifying a specific counter-agent are remote in the extreme. And as for it wearing off - theoretically, one would think it a realistic possibility. However, factoring in the, as yet, unquantified 'Longbottom effect', I think we may safely conclude that the most convenient outcome will also be the least likely one." 

Hermione shifted resentfully at his airy dismissal of her body. It wasn't as if she'd _asked_ to be trapped in a thin, ugly, greasy male body herself. Before she could protest, Dumbledore intervened. 

"I hardly think that Miss Granger is celebrating her current position either, Severus." 

Snape looked directly at her for just about the first time since any of this had happened. He had the grace to look a little sheepish. 

"No, I suppose not," he conceded grudgingly. 

Hermione wondered if she had just got an apology out of Snape. Miracles would never cease. 

She managed to find her voice. 

"Professor Dumbledore, what are we going to do?" 

She could have wished that she sounded a little more confident. Snape's voice did 'plaintive' about as convincingly as hers did 'silky'. She was fixed with a look of exasperation. 

"We are clearly going to have to find some way of staying apart from the school until this situation has resolved itself." 

Dumbledore, however, was shaking his head. 

"I'm afraid that's not going to be possible, Severus." 

Snape looked as horrified as Hermione felt. For one moment the dislocated minds and bodies were back functioning in perfect harmony. Snape was the first to achieve articulation. 

"You cannot be serious, headmaster. You aren't suggesting...." 

"I'm perfectly serious, Severus. You cannot tell me how long this effect is going to last. I cannot have my Potions Master and my Head Girl both disappearing for an indefinite length of time. There would be no way of keeping that information quiet, and the resulting speculation would be highly damaging. No, you are simply going to have to find a way to fulfil each other's roles until a solution is found." 

Hermione was now rapidly moving beyond horror into the realms of pure panic. Dumbledore expected her to... what was it? 'Fulfil his role'? How on Earth was she supposed to do that? What about Harry? What about Ron? What about _Neville_ for Gods' sake? Her parents? Surely he didn't expect her to actually _teach_? 

She began to seriously contemplate exactly how bad it would really be for everyone to think that she had run off with Snape. It had to be better than actually _being_ him. 

From a distance she heard her own voice saying "Rumours eventually die down headmaster." 

With a faintly sick feeling it dawned on her that Snape had just followed the same mental path, and ended up in the same leafy glade of a conclusion. 

"I'm sorry Severus, Hermione. I truly am. But that simply isn't an option." Dumbledore's voice was deadly serious now. "If it were just a question of dealing with your personal embarrassment then I would be happy for you act as you saw fit. I am more than confident that you could both weather any storm. But there is more at stake than that. You know it, Severus. And," he directed this at Hermione, "I believe, if you stop to think, that you will also realise that, Hermione." 

Across from her, the body that was currently under the control of the Potions Master dropped into Dumbledore's other armchair with an air of abject defeat. Despite her own feelings, Hermione found it within herself to feel a little sorry for him. After all, at least she got be a teacher. He was going to have to get used to being a student again. Which brought her back to Harry and Ron.... 

"Um... it might not be too bad," she began, with the vague idea of offering some sort of comfort. "I'm sure Harry and Ron will help if I ask them to." And once they stop laughing themselves sick, she conceded silently to herself. 

The latter thought had evidently also occurred to Snape. 

"Oh yes, Miss Granger. Becoming the object of Potter and Weasley's merriment will make the situation _so_ much more bearable for me." 

She was about to defend her friends, when Dumbledore intervened yet again. 

"Mr Potter and Mr Weasley cannot know about this. Neither can any of the other staff." 

Hermione was speechless. _How did he expect her to manage if she couldn't even talk to her friends about it?_

She looked over at Snape, who had tipped his head back and was studying the ceiling with apparently rapt attention. 

"Why not?" she finally asked the headmaster, when nothing seemed to be forthcoming from the other chair. 

"I realise that your academic marks are impressive, Miss Granger, and that you are, of course, a Gryffindor. But do you really feel that that qualifies you to face Voldemort alone?" 

She couldn't see Snape's face and the voice was expressionless. 

_Voldemort_

She had forgotten Snape's ambiguous position within the ranks of the Dark Lord's followers. 

"Oh." She couldn't think of anything else to say. Dumbledore carried on, after a swift glance at his Potions Master/Head Girl. 

"Precisely, Hermione. If Voldemort learns that there is anything amiss with Professor Snape, then he will seek to investigate. The professor will be summoned to account for himself, which, at this moment, effectively means you." 

She had the point. If Voldemort found out that she wasn't Snape, he would kill her - and then come after Snape in her body. She nodded slowly. 

"Joking apart, Miss Granger, this _accident_ places both of you at grave risk. Neither of you can afford to allow the slightest doubt to creep into anyone's mind that you are not who you appear to be. There are already too many potential routes of information back to Voldemort within this school. The more people who know about this, the greater the danger." 

Hermione felt her mouth go dry and she looked over to Snape again. He still wasn't meeting her eyes. She held him in no very great affection, but that didn't mean that she would deliberately put his life at risk. Particularly as he was currently looking after her body. Only temporarily, she told herself firmly. 

"OK," she said carefully, still watching him, "but you'll have to help me." This last was directed to Snape. After all, he had as much of a vested interest in keeping her alive as she did him. 

Was it her imagination, or did he appear to relax very slightly at that? Dumbledore was certainly beaming again, as if she had just completed an unusually difficult piece of homework. 

"I suggest that you both take some time to... ah... get to know yourselves a little better. I shall expect you at dinner, Miss Granger. And please don't forget the staff meeting immediately afterwards." 

Dumbly, she nodded, getting the distinct impression that they had been dismissed. Snape seemed to feel that as well, since he got up out of the chair, and gestured at the door. 

This time she remembered to leave slightly before Snape. She didn't think that she had quite managed to carry off his trademark sweep, but she noted, with a tinge of satisfaction, his look of annoyance as she came within a whisker of physically pushing him out of the way. 

They continued in silence along the corridors until they reached the entrance hall. That, at least, was in character for both of them. Instinctively they both looked up at the giant hourglasses to check the running totals of house points. Gryffindor was down by ten points, Slytherin was up by five. Snape made a noise of satisfaction, whilst she tutted under her breath. 

"You should be pleased... _Professor_," came the acid whisper from beside her. "Slytherin is doing well." 

She shut her eyes briefly, as the truth sank in. 

She was now Head of Slytherin. 


	3. A Short Course in Me or Hermione 101

**The Fire and the Rose Part 3**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_. 

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

She was Head of Slytherin. 

No. That was ridiculous. There was hardly anyone in the school _less_ suited to being the Head of Slytherin than her, she thought. After Neville perhaps. Although it would be a damned close run thing, as they said. 

_All right, Hermione, my girl, time to get a grip. You and Snape will be able to find a solution for this between you - no matter what he says about joint lifetimes. Hang on for a few days - a week at the most - and it'll be over. How hard can that be?_

It seemed perfectly straightforward. All she had to do was figure out how Snape would react in any given situation, and do the same thing. So, what would he do right now? She glanced at him. He was glaring at her again, although this time he did seem to be trying to make it as covert as he could. 

_Presumably that meant that he would _not_ be staring into space in front of the house points totals._

She tried to force her mind into a Snape-ian thought pattern. 

He would be unpleasant. And unfair. Those were givens. And he would be taking charge. She squared her shoulders, and took a deep breath. She spoke, trying to sound as disdainful as she could. 

"I suggest, _Miss Granger_"... oh dear, she was going to have to work on that sneer... "that, instead of just standing around here, we get back to the Potions Room and see if we can save some of what is left of the... um... _experiment_. It may give us some kind of clue." 

It wasn't quite the effortless contempt that she had been aiming for and the glint in his eyes told her that he hadn't appreciated her remark about 'standing around' either. Too bad, she thought with an edge of bad temper. 

Irritated, she pulled the robes around her and stalked off without looking to see if he was following her. 

Halfway to the dungeons, she noticed a group of three Hufflepuff students approaching. She couldn't immediately put names to them, but she devoutly hoped that they didn't have business with either her or Snape. In mild surprise, she watched them almost skitter away from her as she passed, throwing hasty sympathetic looks in the direction of Snape. They plainly thought that their Head Girl was on her way to detention. Which meant that the combination of general annoyance, heavy black fabric, and extra height had obviously made her stalk quite effective. 

She was still relieved, however, when they reached the dungeons without any further close encounters of the student kind. The door to the Potions Room was shut. She pushed at it, but it didn't open. She was momentarily confused, and then it dawned on her. She turned to Snape. 

"I need the password," she said, without preamble. 

He looked as if he didn't want to give it to her. Then he finally said: 

"Nightshade". 

_Trust him to pick something suitably cheerful and uplifting,_ she thought sourly. 

They entered the classroom together. It was just as much of a shambles as when they had left. Ingredients were scattered and furniture was overturned. Six years of bitter experience had developed impressively fast reflexes in their particular intake, when it came to avoiding the consequences of Neville Longbottom. Behind her she was conscious of Snape closing and warding the classroom door. She picked up a chair at random and set it upright, trying to make a clear decision about where to start. 

At the back of the room the offending concoction had formed a viscous silver-grey pool on the desk where she and Neville had been working. Gingerly, she picked her way through the remains of the lesson, and stopped, staring both at the mess on the desk top and at the impossible jumble of ingredients, broken glass and pottery shards on the floor. 

"Where on Earth do we start?" she murmured, more to herself than anything else. The baritone rumble issuing from her own chest reminded her of the urgency of the matter. 

"We start," said the sharp female voice, "by getting a broom, _Professor_. I doubt that any of this can be saved." 

It was astonishing how you could get so much distaste into a term of respect, she mused, turning to see Snape holding a broom in one hand and thrusting another in her direction. Taking it, she began to help him clear an area around the desk. 

After a moment Snape said: 

"I suppose this would be as good a moment as any for you to begin, _Professor_." 

She was taken aback for a moment. 

"Begin what?" 

The higher voice took on a sneering, sarcastic tone, which set her teeth on edge. 

"Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself, Miss Granger?" he said with exaggerated courtesy. "It's a conversational ploy designed to facilitate social interaction by expressing interest in one's interlocutor, so I'm told." 

She stopped in her cleaning to glare at him. 

"Well, for a start," she snapped, "I don't sneer. Nor do I use phrases like 'conversational ploy designed to facilitate whatever in one's interlocutor'. If you start saying things like that around Harry and Ron you'll be discovered in a minute." 

Their gazes held for a moment, neither of them prepared to give way. Finally, Hermione sighed. 

"What do you already know about me?" 

Snape gave an odd half shrug. 

"Your name is Hermione Patience Granger. I've always thought it a singularly inapt choice of second name for you. You were born sometime in 1980 or 1981 I suppose, given that you are now in your final year. Neither of your parents are magical. You're a Gryffindor. You study hard and achieve high marks in every subject, although Madam Hooch says that your flying could be improved. You associate with Potter and Weasley, and can usually be relied upon to be somewhere in the vicinity when they are breaking school rules. Despite this flagrant disregard of the proprieties, your _other_ teachers regard you with an over-sentimental fondness, which presumably accounts for the fact that you are currently Head Girl. You are bossy, interfering and over-eager to display your knowledge. And you own a large, fluffy, ginger cat which shows atrocious taste in deciding upon whom to bestow its affections." 

Hermione blinked at this summation of her. 

"Remind me to nominate you to speak at my funeral," she muttered. 

Snape looked quizzically at her. 

"Would you prefer insincere flattery, Miss Granger?" 

"Would it make a difference if I said yes?" 

She thought she saw his lips twitch a little at that, but he simply made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat. She decided to let it go. Pausing in her sweeping, she collected her thoughts and tried to work out where to start. 

"Um... I was born on 19th September 1980. My parents are called Alison and Frank. They're both dentists and they live in Esher, in Surrey. Patience was my grandmother on my mother's side hence the name. Um... I went to a small state run primary school until I got my Hogwarts letter. My best friend at school was Karen Marshall, who lived next door but two to us, and we used to swap dolls' clothes...." There was something very uncomfortable about hearing Snape's voice talking about dolls. She looked up at him. His expression was indescribable. "I suppose you don't really need to know that," she said a little sheepishly. 

"Absolutely not," he said with feeling. 

"OK," she said, trying to focus on what parts of her life _would_ help him in the current situation. Finally, she continued. "My cat is called Crookshanks and he's a _he_ not an _it_. He likes to sleep on the pillow at night, next to my head. I get on with everyone in Gryffindor, I think, not just Harry and Ron. I usually lose to Ron at chess. I don't eat meat or gooseberries or asparagus. I like chocolate and rhubarb." She racked her brains. It was difficult to describe yourself, just like that. "I like Arithmancy, Transfiguration and Potions best of all my classes..." she said a little defensively, trying to ignore his sound of disbelief, "... I don't like flying and I can't bear Divination _or_ Professor Trelawney." 

She stopped as she realised what she had just said. 

"I don't think you need to worry about developing a sudden passion for Divination, Miss Granger." He sounded more amused than offended. "And this _is_ something that I need to know," he added seriously. 

"I read just about anything," she continued, "I like music, but I don't know much about it. I like cats, I'm not that fond of dogs..." again, she ignored his choking sound and thought _in for a penny..._ "... I don't like to see people bullied and I don't like people who look down on others because of accident of birth or other things that they can't help." There was a hint of challenge in her tone on the last words, but Snape didn't react. 

I usually help Neville with his homework...," she broke off as something occurred to her. "Professor," she said urgently, "you will... I mean you won't..." She shook her head impatiently, and began again. "What I mean is, if you... I... _don't_ help Neville it will look odd... people will start to think that something is wrong." 

He sighed. 

"I see clearly that Mr Longbottom is destined to haunt me for some time to come." He paused, and then continued in a voice which sounded as if it was being physically dragged from him. "I shall continue with the extra-curricular coaching of Mr Longbottom. I trust he will appreciate it." 

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Snape put his broom aside. 

"I think that we are ready to bottle what we can of this... substance." 

Pulling out his wand, he murmured "_Accio_ vials" and several plain glass bottles flew off a shelf at the side of the room. They came to rest, hovering above the desk. Snape plucked them out of mid-air and placed them on the table. Deftly, he used a _Pleneo_ charm to transfer what he could of the silver-grey potion into the bottles. He then stoppered them tightly, sealed them with a charm and headed off towards his office. Hermione followed. Snape paused at the door, looking mutinous. 

"If I'm to do this I need _all_ your passwords," she remarked pointedly. After a beat he rather grudgingly conceded the point. 

"However, I do not expect to find that Potter and Weasley have been making themselves free in here in my absence," he added, entering his office. 

Hermione abruptly found herself very annoyed indeed. 

"And I don't expect to find that my friends are suddenly going to start losing loads of house points for things that they say in the privacy of the Gryffindor common room," she retorted. 

His face worked, and she was waiting for the inevitable explosion. However, it didn't come. When he did speak his voice sounded forced. 

"Do not worry, Miss Granger. Anything that your... friends... say in front of me, believing me to be you, will go no further." 

She nodded. 

"And anything that people tell me because they think I am you will also be kept private," she responded. 

They held each others' gazes again, and in that time a tentative truce was proposed and accepted. 

"Now we've done this," she gestured at potion bottles that he was putting in the desk drawer, "I suppose I'd better show you my rooms. Or rather, your rooms." 

He nodded in return, pausing to shuffle through some papers on the top of the desk. He straightened, holding a small sheaf of parchment. He held it out to her. 

"You'll need this. It's the information and agenda for the staff meeting this evening," he said shortly. "I'll let you know anything significant before you have to leave." 

Hermione took it. 

"Thank you," she said simply. "Shall we go?" 

Leaving the Potions Room - this time he stood back and allowed her to cast the wards - Snape steered her in the opposite direction from the one she would have chosen. They reached a blank wall, and Snape demonstrated a variant on the _Dissendium_ charm which caused the wall to rearrange itself into an archway. Behind the archway was a staircase. He informed her that it would take them the greater part of the way to her rooms without the risk of being seen by the student body. It was undoubtedly a useful piece of knowledge, and one which went some considerable way to explaining Snape's apparent ability to materialise out of thin air. 

Hermione only detected a trace of gritted teeth in his explanation. 

Arriving at her rooms, she laid her hand on the door and said "Unicorn's Blood". The door swung open. She went in, and gestured for Snape to follow her, trying to distance herself from the thought that she was entertaining the Potions Master in her private rooms. It somehow felt a greater invasion of privacy than being alone with him in the classroom had been. He looked moderately surprised at her choice of password. 

"What?" she snapped, made short by her own discomfort. "What were you expecting? _Fluffy Bunny Rabbits_?" 

He scowled at her tone. 

"My limited interest in the workings of the minds of teenage girls ends at the door of my classroom, Miss Granger," he replied repressively. 

She ignored him, walking across her room, irrationally wishing that she had taken more time to clear up before she had left that morning. The bed was unmade, and she was uncomfortably aware that her nightdress was in a heap in the middle of the floor. She bent to pick it up. The sight of the crumpled white cotton in Snape's strong, very obviously masculine hand was almost too much for her, and she had to fight the impulse to run back through the school to Dumbledore, to tell him that she didn't care - she couldn't do this. 

Jaw clenched, and trying not to shake, she dumped her nightwear on the bed, and pulled absently at the covers. 

"These are my rooms," she said unnecessarily. "I'm afraid I'm a bit disorganised sometimes. But you can find everything if you look." 

It was an unnerving experience, to see your own personal space through someone else's eyes. As rooms went it wasn't particularly _girly_. No frills, no flounces and not a hint of pink anywhere. There were very few ornaments; only one Muggle photograph in a plain silver frame, showing a pleasant looking couple aged in their mid-forties - her parents. There was a small hearth, with two comfortable armchairs upholstered in deep burgundy. In front of the hearth, the polished wood floor was covered by a deep pile rug, also in burgundy. To the left of the door were shelves, already haphazardly piled with books and scrolls. Attached to the shelves was a large piece of parchment, with diagrams and symbols on it in different colours. 

A table, pushed against the opposite wall underneath a large picture window, was similarly cluttered. Set in the right hand wall was another door, which led to her personal bathroom. Next to the door was a large wardrobe in light oak and a chest of drawers in the same wood. A trunk was doubling as a low table. 

Whilst the whole room was more or less decorated in Gryffindor colours, it was not oppressive, and the whole gave the impression of light and space. Apart from the photograph, the only items that could truly be described as personal to Hermione were a very old, very battered teddy bear propped on the bed, and a indeterminate pile of ginger fur, which had developed two baleful eyes. 

Crookshanks got up, stretched, jumped off the bed and sauntered over to the two of them. He sniffed at Hermione's feet, and then at Snape's. 

"Crookshanks, this is Professor Snape." Hermione gestured to the person who looked, and no doubt smelt, like her. "There's been a bit of an accident. He'll be staying here for a little while." 

She felt a little stupid explaining things to her cat like that. From the expression on his face, Snape agreed with her self-assessment. However, Crookshanks fixed "Hermione" with a glare, and hissed at her. 

"Please be nice to him," she urged, feeling even more foolish. 

Crookshanks looked at her, and then at Snape, and then gave what could only be called a shrug, and returned to the bed. 

_Who said he had atrocious taste in his choice of friends_, she thought with satisfaction. 

She waved at the room. 

"This is it. The house elves change the bed once a week, but you'll have to make it yourself in between. Or not. The wardrobe has my school robes and my blouses and skirts and my dress robes in it. Oh, and there are some other Muggle bits and pieces there. The chest of drawers has jumpers and trousers and..." She didn't care what the Headmaster said - she was _not_ going to discuss her underwear with Snape. He could just find out for himself. "... and other things," she concluded vaguely. "I expect it will all be obvious. The house elves collect the laundry on Mondays and return it on Wednesdays. Um... " she pointed at the other door, "... the bathroom is through there. There's another cupboard in there with... well... that sort of stuff in. Would you like some tea?" 

The last phrase was said in a sort of desperation to take her mind off the expression of rising disbelief on Snape's face. 

"I have to live _here_?" he eventually managed. 

She bridled at that. 

"It could be worse," she said acidly. "You could have swapped with Lavender Brown. I'm sure you'd enjoy all those extra Divination classes. Or it could have happened _last_ year. Then you'd have to share a room with her _and_ Pavarti." 

Good grief, she thought. For a moment I _actually_ sounded like him. Snape blinked. The same thing had obviously occurred to him. 

She pointed at the parchment hanging from the shelves. "That's my timetable. Everything you need for classes is either on the shelves or on the table. All my homework is up to date." She shrugged. "I can't really think of anything else to tell you." She tried to smile. It felt awkward, as if the muscles weren't really used to arranging themselves in that configuration. "I'm afraid I'm not a very interesting person." 

When Snape didn't bite on that lead she looked at him curiously. He was pacing rather nervously. 

"Is something wrong?" she asked, conscious of the deep irony of the question given their current situation. 

He seemed to be struggling for words. Finally he managed: 

"Miss Granger, please tell me one thing. Are you... do you... I mean, Potter..." 

_Another first,_ she thought bemusedly. _Professor Snape lost for words._ The gentleman in question shut his eyes and doggedly continued. 

"Miss Granger, _please_ tell me that you are not... romantically... involved with either Potter or Weasley... or anyone else for that matter..." 

For a moment she was stunned. Then the possibilities began to present themselves to her mind. She collapsed into one of the chairs near the fire and began to shake. After a brief, unsuccessful struggle to control herself, she gave way to fits of helpless laughter. Even the poisonous glares from across the room couldn't sober her up; the whole vision was just too ridiculous. For one glorious instant she contemplated telling him that she was secretly engaged to Neville Longbottom. 

She was also rather enjoying the rich baritone that she was producing. It was unexpectedly mellow. But then again, to her knowledge no one had ever heard Snape laugh. With a struggle she composed herself. 

"No, Professor," she gulped, trying to reassure him. "I'm not _romantically involved_ with anyone at the moment." Something prompted her to add, "although, if you decide to change that, I'd appreciate it if you'd discuss it with me first." 

"This is not a laughing matter, Miss Granger," he said in an arctic tone. "You may rest assured that I will _not_ be organising your love life for you." 

That brought her back down to Earth. 

"I'm sorry," she said with real contrition, "I wasn't laughing at you. It was more the whole situation - I just needed to get rid of some of the tension I think. Dinner is one thing, but I can't say I'm really looking forward to trying to convince the rest of the staff that I'm you at this meeting later." She paused. "Did you want any tea?" 

"Yes, well," he said eventually, "I suppose tea would be nice." 


	4. Turnabout Is Hell or Severus 101

**The Fire and the Rose Part 4**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_. 

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want email notification of updates, joining the group is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Tea would be very nice - anything to distract him from a rising horror as the reality of the situation forced its way to the surface. Dumbledore and tidying up had kept him busy enough to avoid having to think much beyond the immediate but now, here in Hermione's - or rather, his - room, he was literally surrounded by the consequences of Mr Longbottom's actions - and he had to tutor the boy. 

Snape resisted the urge to groan and bury his head in his hands. This public baring of body and soul to Miss Granger was painful enough without adding her concern to it. 

He settled for shaking his head slightly once Hermione had turned away to start to make the tea; he shuddered abruptly, as the sensation of long hair brushing his back was startling to say the least. He resisted the temptation to put his hand to it, thinking that he'd have time later to explore ... then shoved all thoughts of exploration very rapidly away, feeling his face redden slightly as his mind strayed from the idea of Miss Granger's - no, his - hair. 

Seeking a distraction, Snape looked around the room again and sighed softly, seeing the ginger cat on the bed eye him suspiciously. He almost began to believe in cosmic retribution - this felt suspiciously as though he was being made to pay for everything he had done so far in his life; well, perhaps not everything. But he was certainly paying for something. Being a teenage girl was ... he couldn't actually think of something he'd rather less be. The only saving grace was that she wasn't actually involved with - he shuddered again as the mere idea of having to maintain a relationship with Potter or Weasley arose like a Dementor in his mind. 

He gritted his teeth, pushing the idea away, and then spoke to Hermione's back as she made tea. 

"The staff meeting - you have the agenda, most of the topics will be obvious from that. I believe you will be aware of some of them in any case, as the Head Girl usually has some familiarity with school administration. I prefer to keep a low profile in these meetings; take a chair by the fire and do not attempt to take part in the incessant chatter before - and after - the meeting. 

The only matter that may require you to speak in this meeting relates to Professor McGonagall's protest about Mrs Norris. I believe she had some altercation with Filch's animal last time the Professor took it into her head to go wandering about the school late at night in her cat form." 

He paused for a moment, trying not to laugh at the tale he'd been told of McGonagall fleeing Mrs Norris, too concerned with getting away to remember to change back to human form, and he saw Hermione's shoulders twitch slightly. But, when she looked round, there was only curiousity on her face. 

"Why will I need to speak?" 

"Because Flich, for reasons which I have never understood, always appears to believe that I will support him - he will appeal to you as a result. I would suggest that you simply say that it has nothing to do with you and you have no plans to become involved in these sort of matters. Keep it short and curt, and do not worry about hurting Filch's feelings. Or McGonagall's, come to that." 

To his relief, Hermione didn't question his instructions and simply nodded as she brought a mug of tea over to him, steam curling lazily up from the mug. He took it gingerly, still trying to get used to the shortness of his reach now and unfamiliar fingers. 

"Thank you," he said, bringing his thoughts back to the point of their being here. She needed some information about him, to be able to pass for him without destroying them both. He hoped her acting abilities were up to the mark - and supposed that he should begin with that. 

Snape opened his mouth to speak, but he'd been silent too long and Hermione beat him to it. There was a smile on her face; it looked decidedly odd. Probably lack of use of the appropriate muscles - he couldn't remember the last time he'd really smiled. 

"So, Professor. Are _you_ romantically involved with anyone?" 

Snape froze, then surprised himself - and Hermione - by following her earlier example and simply laughing; he set the tea carefully down on the trunk and sat in the other chair, catching his breath at the unexpectedness of his own response. Matter over mind, it seemed; how many more of his reactions would be coloured by the response of a body not his own? Thankfully, he turned out to have a pleasant laugh, neither giggling nor hysterical, although he was uncomfortably aware that hysterics weren't far off. He quietened, holding a hand up. 

"My apologies, Miss Granger. No ... no, I am not _involved_ with anyone. Romantically or otherwise," he added, working his way back around to the topic he had planned to begin with. "My ... life ... has not been conducive to forming such attachments; you will no doubt have some idea as to why." 

Hermione nodded, watching him with his own eyes. It was an odd sensation, rather like looking into a mirror all the time. 

"Why don't you tell me what you know about me? I can then add any detail you need to know. Fortunately," he drawled, regaining some composure, "my ... desire ... for privacy will mean you have rather fewer people to deal closely with than I will." 

"You'd be surprised," muttered Hermione. "Very well. You are Severus Accius Snape - the yearbooks in the library are very informative, Professor," she added, as he raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You're 38 years old, you have been Potions Master here at Hogwarts ... actually, I don't know how long you've been here. Long enough to teach Bill and Charlie Weasley. You ... you don't suffer fools, you have a, um, unique teaching style. You can referee Quidditch matches but you've only done that once since I've been at school." A moment's pause; he watched Hermione swallow. "And you were a Deatheater. Now you spy for Dumbledore." 

Her voice tailed off. 

"That is all you know about me?" asked Snape after a moment. Hermione nodded. 

"Good. That's all you are supposed to know. At least your nocturnal exploits with Potter and Weasley haven't given you any more information - exploits with Potter's invisibility cloak, Miss Granger, I am not casting doubt on your statement that you are not _involved_ with either," Snape added as Hermione looked mutinous. 

"As I was saying," he drawled, then spoke again at a normal speed. Hermione's voice was not entirely suited to drawling - somehow it sounded even more bored and sarcastic than his own voice did. Unfortunately the result was closer to a teenage sulk than intimidation. "As I was saying, I prefer privacy, Miss Granger. It does not suit me to have all and sundry aware of the details of my life, and I do not encourage it. Nor do I plan to encourage it - I have never prattled in small talk, Miss Granger, and it would be safer for both of us if you were not to change that." 

Hermione interrupted; Snape noticed that she was beginning to master his intonations. "Professor, I am well aware of the dangers for both of us if anyone should become suspicious of _either_ of us," she bit out. "If we dispense with the mutual insults, this will pass much more quickly." 

"Good." Snape almost smiled at the confusion on Hermione's face. "You actually sounded like me, Miss Granger. Do keep it up." 

"Insufferable bastard." 

Snape decided not to dispute that particular sub-vocal mutter directly; keeping her angry was the fastest way to ensure that she presented a reasonably convincing facade to the school. He focussed again on the conversation, determined to get it over with. 

"Details. Well, I doubt you'll have reason to need these but it is just possible that some of the other staff might mention something that you would be expected to know. Your research in the library was correct, I am 38 - I was born on September 13th, 1960. I do not celebrate my birthday and I do not plan for us to still be in this particular situation by the time it next arrives. My parents are both alive and yes, Miss Granger, they were married when I was born; they live in Suffolk, and are not particularly remarkable. No-one on the staff here has met them or, to the best of my knowledge, knows anything about them beyond the fact of their existence. I have a house in Hogsmeade which I inherited from my grandmother. If anyone attempts to ask you about it, just say that you have no plans to spend any time there at the moment. I have no siblings, nor any extended family. 

I have been working for Dumbledore for 15 years - in both senses. I joined the school faculty in the summer term of 1983. I was a ... follower of Voldemort for five years before that, from my eighteenth birthday. I do not talk about that time to anyone, so no-one will expect you to refer to it nor will anyone make reference to it." 

A low, quiet voice asked "Except Voldemort." 

"As you say," Snape replied, nodding curtly. "Except Voldemort. My last meeting with him was ... not very long ago. You are probably safe for now, but we should develop some contingency plans this weekend. We only have to deal with tomorrow and then, at least, we shall have the weekend to plan and to acquaint ourselves properly with our character facades to some extent. There is not enough time now, you will be expected at the staff meeting soon. However, given that neither of our lives appear to be running smoothly at the moment, if the Mark - on your left arm," he reminded Hermione, who had instinctively pulled up a sleeve to look at the skin on her arms. "If the Mark becomes visible, or starts to burn, find me _immediately_. Do not attempt any Gryffindor heroics, Miss Granger, or we will both be dead." 

Hermione bristled, so he hurried on before she could start to complain; better to let her fester and so improve her performance. 

"Fortunately, I am not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone - save perhaps Dumbledore - so you will not raise any suspicion if you should need to contact me urgently. All I would ask," he sighed, "is that you dismiss any class you are teaching at the time. I _would_ like my classroom back relatively intact once this is all over." 

"Yes, Professor." Hermione finished her tea and stood abruptly. Collecting her mug and Snape's, she headed over to the small sink in the corner. She busied herself, washing the mugs, as Snape watched her back. Suddenly, she spoke, her tone rather acid. 

"You know, Professor, your plan to make me angry enough to do a passable impersonation of you does raise a few questions." She paused, and Snape almost jumped in with a flat refusal to discuss his psyche. He was grateful for his restraint when Hermione spoke again. 

"The first question being, what do I have to do to make sure _you_ can convince everyone else that you are _me_?" 

Hermione had turned round and was watching him now, tall and silent. Snape noted absently that she seemed to be holding herself carefully, apparently trying to mimic his normal posture. He caught himself sitting upright in the chair and forced himself to slump forwards just a little, like so many of his students did, Miss Granger included. His back would ache before the day was out, he was sure of it. 

"I had thought," he said thoughtfully, "that you might perhaps start to become rather obsessed with studying for the NEWTs, Miss Granger. It would not, after all, be entirely out of character even this early in the year." 

Hermione's sallow skin flushed slightly, but she nodded and gave the idea some thought before replying. 

"You'll have to watch out for Harry and Ron, they get just as obsessed with dragging me out of the library when they think I'm working too hard. Still, it's a good idea; it should be mean that you can be distracted and absent-minded so that any slips are explained away as over-work. And it will give you more time to get used to dealing with the Gryffindors as one of them." 

Snape nodded, propping his chin on his folded hands. 

"It will also mean that I can shut myself away in here, supposedly studying, and meet you in my rooms to go over your lesson plans for the next day," Hermione blanched as he spoke, the concept of actually having to teach Potions apparently only now sinking in, "and to also give you my notes from classes and pass on your homework, Miss Granger." 

"My homework?" she echoed. 

"Your homework, Miss Granger. It's bad enough that I have to repeat seventh year classes, Miss Granger - you surely didn't think I was going to do your homework for you as well, did you?" He raised an eyebrow as he spoke, then stood. "I believe we will be late for dinner unless we leave now, Miss Granger." 


	5. Just Don't Give Away The Homeworld

**The Fire and the Rose Part 5**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Snape clearly seemed to think that his bare few sentences would enable to her to deal with the coming evening. She was inclined to disagree, and said so on their way to the Great Hall. With an air of long-suffering that made him sound _exactly_ like a world-weary teenaged girl explaining something to an unusually slow parent, he began to tell her what she could expect. 

Her lips twitched and she suppressed the urge to smile again; he was obviously completely unaware of the effect. So much the better for him. 

"Although the headmaster described it as a staff meeting it is, in fact, the monthly Heads of House meeting, which at least means that you will have less people to deal with." 

_Less, but probably the hardest to fool,_ she thought, amusement fading. 

"Pay attention," he hissed. 

Gritting her teeth slightly, she returned her attention to the irritated Gryffindor by her side. 

"As I said, you should be aware of some of the topics already - student discipline, special problems and, just for once, I do not recall that you or your friends form an item on the agenda." 

That was one relief at least. No doubt it would give him enormous pleasure to think of her having to call for the expulsion of Harry and Ron for some reason. Purely in the interests of staying in character, of course. 

"The meetings are in the headmaster's study and usually start about half an hour after dinner ends. The password is 'Licorice Comfits'. I suggest you use the time to familiarise yourself with the various topics." She had stowed the bundle of parchments outlining the agenda safely in her robes, which possessed considerably more pockets and other hiding places than her school ones did. She nodded in response to this. 

"And there are definitely no special matters that need to be raised concerning Slytherin?" she asked, trying to sound more confident than she felt. 

"No, Miss Granger," he said patiently, "not at this meeting. Just try not to make any commitments on behalf of the house if you can possibly help it. Slytherin is not the house to volunteer to organise a sponsored litter collection or a quilting bee." 

"As you wish," she said shortly, nervous and tiring of his relentless sarcasm. Especially when it came packaged in her own voice. He looked at her. 

"Miss Granger, other than the matter of Mrs Norris, it is extremely unlikely that you will have to offer up any kind of opinion this evening. If any difficult subjects are raised, no doubt the headmaster will steer the conversation to safer topics." His voice softened almost imperceptibly. "You should be able to survive the experience by simply sitting in the armchair closest to the fire and drinking every cup of tea that the headmaster gives you. Other than that, simply glare, grunt every now and then, and give the impression that you wish to be anywhere other than sitting in a staff meeting. I can't imagine that that should prove too difficult a task under the circumstances." 

She cast him a swift glance. _Was that a joke?_ His face was unreadable. Not that she had had that much practice at reading her own expressions of course. The moment passed, but she was still comforted by his reminder that Dumbledore would be there - the headmaster wouldn't let her make a mistake, she thought. All she had to do was get through the meeting and then she could collapse in... ah. Yes. 

Snape had paused. 

"Is there anything else, Miss Granger?" 

_Oh yes, indeed._

"Passwords," she said succinctly. 

He looked a little nonplussed. 

"Passwords," she repeated. "To be more specific, yours." His face darkened. "Well," she continued, trying to sound reasonable rather than panicky, "at the moment the only place that I have to sleep is the Head Girl's rooms. So you either tell me the passwords to your rooms, or I share with you and we can decide how to explain it to Harry and Ron in the morning." 

She heard him stifle an audible choke. In a distinctly sulky mutter he informed her of the sequences which would enable her to enter his private quarters. 

She felt a sudden flash of empathy for him. She intensely disliked the idea of him invading her personal space. The very private Potions Master must be finding it equally difficult to be forced to allow her almost unrestricted access to his life, even for a short time. She carefully kept her face still. This was not the moment to offer sympathy of any description. 

And that just left the next ordeal to endure. 

Dinner. 

And her first official public appearance as Snape. If only from a distance. 

Just as they were about to step into a more populated corridor, an awful thought occurred to her. She grabbed at his robe. 

"Wait," she hissed, pulling him back. 

He opened his mouth to protest, but she waved him silent without thinking. 

She didn't see his mouth quirk faintly in something like approval. 

"Is there anything you don't eat?" 

Whatever he had been going to say died on his lips as he obviously began to think quickly. 

"Shellfish of any description." _Certainly not a problem there._ Shellfish gave her the creeps. Alive or dead. "Muggle sweets." _Bearable._ He closed his eyes. "I really do not like pumpkin juice." _Oh dear. Looks like water then._ "And..." and here his voice took on a tone of deep and profound loathing "... broccoli." 

She was a trifle taken aback at this and had to bite her lip to stop herself laughing out loud. She wondered what the innocent broccoli plant had ever done to Snape for him to hate it with such vehemence. One look at his face suggested that this was not the time for enquiry. 

"I also _do_ eat meat," he said, with a hint of malice. "I'm rather fond of it." 

_Typical!_

She glared back at him and without a word swept into the corridor and joined the rest of the staff and students heading for the Great Hall. 

She was concentrating so hard on keeping her posture bolt upright and her stride long and purposeful that she had to struggle not to yelp when her arm was taken in a friendly manner and a familiar voice said: 

"Ah, Severus, splendid to see you." 

Barely managing not to break stride, she found herself swept towards the High Table by the inexorable force that was Albus Dumbledore. 

"Headmaster," she managed to get out by way of acknowledgement. 

"All ready for our little meeting, tonight? Splendid, simply splendid," he repeated, not waiting for her to answer. "I trust that you had a productive afternoon?" 

By this time she had been expertly manoeuvered into her seat by the elderly wizard. He now seemed to expect an answer to her question. 

She nodded briefly, more to give herself time to think than anything else. 

"It was... informative," was the best she could do. 

"Splendid," said Dumbledore, yet again. "And it's beef wellington tonight as well. I know how much you like that." He clapped her on the back as he moved along the table to her left, to take his own place. 

Hermione was deeply grateful for the clues that the headmaster was throwing in her direction but uncertain as to how to deal with the sudden excess of bonhomie radiating from the man. Her discomfort must have produced the right sort of effect though, for none of the staff gave her a second glance. Madam Hooch, her immediate neighbour to the left simply nodded a curt "Severus," at him in acknowledgment. She nodded in return, not quite certain what to say. This seemed to be all that Hooch expected for she immediately resumed her conversation with Sprout on her other side. 

A house elf placed a steaming plate of pastry covered meat in front of her. Swallowing a little she reached for some mashed potatoes. She noted that the vegetables included carrots, sugar snap peas and broccoli. Good job he'd warned her, she thought. She quite liked broccoli. 

Summoning her courage, she began to eat. 

In the end dinner was not quite the ordeal she had expected. Once she began to eat, she discovered that she was really quite hungry. Fighting the urge to stuff herself, she discreetly helped herself to seconds and then began to pick idly at a plate of roast potatoes until pudding arrived. She noticed that no one really looked at her. If she did happen to accidentally catch someone's eye they hastily found something else to occupy their interest. 

Sipping at her water, her gaze was pulled to the Gryffindor table and that spot about half way down where she always sat. He was at least in the right place, she thought with relief. She assumed that he'd had the sense to follow Ron. Unless Dumbledore had managed to pull another steering trick. He looked stiff, too stiff and she tried not to be horrified at the amount of food he was eating. Ron and Harry were talking about something across him - Quidditch would be a safe bet - and across the table she could see Neville's earnest face saying something. 

_Probably asking what had happened after the class had been dismissed and had Snape been really horrid to her?_ She hoped he would at least _try_ to be nice to him. 

The irony was that ordinarily she would regard eating at the High Table as an honour. Right now though, she was mechanically eating her pudding and trying not to wish too hard that she were with her friends. 

Eventually dinner ended and she needed to find a quiet space to read. The dungeons were too far and she didn't quite feel up to the staff room. As everybody filed out, she stood up, gathered her robes around her and tried to stride out of the room as if she had pressing business elsewhere. No one sought to detain her - in fact the students parted in front of her allowing her to leave with ease. 

Remembering that she was close to a rarely used passageway - a useful discovery made on a midnight excursion with Harry and Ron a year or so ago - she detached herself from the crowds and managed to find a deserted room. Hastily locking and warding the door behind her she settled herself to read. 

Too soon her half an hour was up and, steeling herself, she headed for Dumbledore's office, muttering the password at the sleepy gargoyle. She was willing to bet that Snape was the punctual type. 

The door to the headmaster's office swung open before she could knock. 

"Severus," came the cheerful voice from inside, "do come in and join us." 

Inside the office five squashy armchairs were now grouped around the fire. In the centre was a low table with a tray on it. On the tray stood a large teapot and five cups. Professor McGonagall was standing by the table, watching the pot as it obligingly poured itself. 

She stood there, trying to project the effortless authority of the Head of Slytherin. 

"Have a seat, Severus, do." 

_What had he said? The armchair closest to the fire?_

She seated herself next to the fire and nodded at Dumbledore. 

"Headmaster." 

"Tea?" 

She nodded again, remembering how he had taken it in her room. 

"Black." 

She supposed that at some point she should try communicating in more than nods and single words. However, Professor McGonagall failed to comment. She simply looked at him a little sourly and seated herself. 

Maybe Snape really _didn't_ get more eloquent that this. 

"I suppose that it's pointless asking if you have any views on the draft consultation paper, Severus." This from McGonagall. 

_My whole attendance here is pointless_, she thought, reflecting wryly that it was a very Snape-ish thought. _I wonder..._

She gave voice to thought, infusing her tone with as much boredom as she could. 

McGonagall snorted. 

"You would say that," she snapped, "just because you have _no_ interest in..." 

Dumbledore cut across her happily, thus saving her from sinking in the unexpected quicksand of inter-house politics. Hermione made a mental note to have a _long_ chat with Snape about this. 

"Now, now, Minerva, let's save this for everyone. We don't want anyone to be left out now." 

He seemed to twinkle in Hermione's direction and she was just feeling quite pleased with herself when another thought struck her. _Severus. Minerva. Albus._ She was supposed to be on first name terms with these people. She struggled to remember Professor Flitwick's name. Frederick... no. Frank... Philip... _Filius_... that was it. But what the hell was Professor Sprout's name? 

The meeting managed to be both boring and terrifying at the same time. The mystery of Professor Sprout's given name was solved by an enthusiastic "Ermengarde!" from the headmaster, as she walked in. After that Hermione was swept along in the endless details that made up the running of a school. The knowledge that that Snape would expect to be fully informed kept her attention focussed. Even so the meeting seemed interminable. 

It appeared that looking disinterested and grunting was indeed what everyone expected of the Head of Slytherin. For the better part of the meeting her sole contribution was to drink the tea from the seemingly bottomless teapot. 

Finally Dumbledore moved to close the meeting and Hermione had just begun to relax when McGonagall's sharp Scottish accent sounded again. 

"Excuse me, headmaster. I believe we have one more topic to discuss." 

_Mrs Norris._ Hermione closed her eyes. She had been hoping against hope that it had been overlooked. Obviously not. Her heart sank and she tried not to groan out loud. 

"Well, I'm sorry, Severus, if this affects your favourite, but it is a matter of some importance to me." 

_Filch? A favourite?_

"I can assure you, Minerva, that Filch is very far from being a favourite _anything_ of mine." She carefully let something of her genuine heartfelt distaste for the thought make it into her voice and face, pleased that she had managed to use Professor McGonagall's given name without hesitation. 

McGonagall simply snorted. 

"As you are aware," she began, "Several nights ago, I was checking the corridors of the school when I was attacked by... _that cat._" She shuddered and was about to launch into a detailed description when Dumbledore intervened. 

"Minerva, I think we all know what happened. Shall we invite Argus in and see what he has to say?" 

There was another indignant noise from the Head of Gryffindor. Hermione tried to look suitably uninterested, but then noted that both Flitwick and Sprout seemed to be intently studying Dumbledore's choice of decor. For a moment she wondered why that would be, until it dawned on her that they were trying not to look amused. The small part of her that was not completely terrified was surprised by the thought that this might just be fun. 

Her attention was jerked back to the present by the entrance of a mutinous looking Argus Filch, clearly prepared to defend his ghastly feline to the death. He smoothed back his ratty hair, simply managing to make himself look more unsavoury. Next to Filch, she thought, Snape looked positively _groomed_. 

"Well, Mr Filch," began Dumbledore kindly, "I think you know why I have asked you to come today. We are all aware of the recent unfortunate... ah... encounter between Mrs Norris and Professor McGonagall." 

"Encounter?" screeched the Head of Gryffindor in outraged tones. "I was viciously set upon by _that cat_, if it _is_ a cat. If I didn't know better I would think it was some dangerous beast charmed to look like a cat." 

Filch began to bristle. 

"Well, what's my poor dear girl supposed to do, eh? There she is, patrolling as she normally does, and a fine job of it she does as well, when she comes across some strange cat where it's not supposed to be. Of course she's going to defend her territory. It's only natural." 

"_That cat_ should be banned from the school buildings," muttered McGonagall darkly. 

"And who would catch the students when they're up to no good?" demanded Filch. "You agree with me don't you, Professor Snape? You've always said as how you'd be lost without her." 

Hermione, who was beginning to enjoy the exchange, realised suddenly that she was being addressed. She started a little and tried to cover it with a _hmph_. The same small part of her now pointed out that this was her golden opportunity to get at Filch with no possibility of retribution. 

"This has nothing to do with me, Filch. I have absolutely no intention of getting involved in a _cat_ fight of any description." Snape's voice was inordinately well suited to that kind of remark, she noted. She also could have sworn that she heard Flitwick make a noise which hastily became a sneeze. Another question had arisen in her mind and she wondered if she could push her luck just a fraction more.... 

"Out of curiosity," she remarked to the air in general, "who did actually win?" This time it was Sprout who developed a nasty cough, while McGonagall looked furious and rubbed her right ear a little self-consciously. Filch's obsequious demeanour shaded into triumph. 

"Yes, well," Dumbledore said smoothly, "I'm sure that Mrs Norris will recognise Professor McGonagall in the future and vice versa. Perhaps you could... ah...keep her in for the next couple of nights though, Argus? Good." He beamed. "Thank you for coming." 

With that the greasy caretaker slid out of the room, leaving behind a fuming McGonagall who was shooting poisonous looks at Hermione. Hermione, herself, was busy trying to concentrate on feeling guilty about shamelessly baiting her own Head of House. 

With the departure of Filch, however, the meeting was finally over. McGonagall stalked out muttering under her breath in Gaelic. Sprout and Flitwick were openly chuckling. Hermione moved to follow them out, but Dumbledore laid a hand on her arm to keep her back. When the room was empty he smiled at her. 

"Well done, my dear. I don't think they noticed a thing." 

She smiled back. 

"Well, I think it helps that Professor Snape is ..." _an insufferable bastard_... she amended hastily, "well, he isn't very chatty." 

"No." He was looking at her with an odd, wistful expression on his face. 

"Is there something wrong, headmaster?" That was almost automatic after the meeting. 

"No, no. It's just that it's been an awfully long time since I saw Severus smile." He shook himself. "Ignore a maudlin old man, Miss Granger. You did very well this evening." 

He showed her to the door and she walked off down the corridor, the stride becoming already more practised and carefully not thinking about the implications of that last remark. 

She left the headmaster's private quarters and was about to head for her... his... rooms, when something struck her. She was beginning to feel the inevitable physiological consequences of a sedentary evening spent drinking tea. 

She needed to use the bathroom. 

Immediately. 

She knew where the staff toilets were, arrived there not too indecorously, and even remembered first time to go into the gents. 

Where she stood transfixed at the sight in front of her. 

On the wall in front of her were a number of gleaming white porcelain... well... basins were the only word for them. Except that they had no taps and had rather higher backs than you would expect. They had holes in them but no plugs. And they were definitely at... well... _that_ height up the wall. Groin height. 

To one side was a small stool. She fought to keep the image of Professor Flitwick out of her mind. And as for Hagrid.... 

No. No. No. _Nononononononono._

She could _not_ use one of those. _Not_. 

The pressure from her bladder reminded her that she needed to find a solution. Preferably one that did not involve wetting herself. 

She bolted for a cubicle and locked the door. She fumbled with the unfamiliar robes until she could finally sit on the - normal - toilet and relieve herself. All the time steadfastly not looking down. 

_Gods. Oh Gods._

She put her head into her slightly shaking hands. 

After a while she found that her mind had formed a surprisingly vivid picture of Neville Longbottom suffering a lingering and frightful torment. She wondered if the Slytherin blood currently supplying her brain was beginning to influence her thought processes. She was absolutely convinced that one to one tuition from Snape was the _least_ that Neville deserved for inflicting this torture on her. 

Finally, she sat upright again, stood and adjusted her robes. This was no good. She had to pull herself together. Leaving the cubicle, she washed her hands and left the toilets to run almost straight into Snape himself. 

He saw where she had been and an eyebrow quirked slightly. 

She fixed him with a glare that would have impressed a basilisk. 

"I do _not_ want to talk about it," she spat. 

_A/N The title of this chapter is an extremely obscure line from an episode of Babylon 5_


	6. Yesterday Once More

**The Fire and the Rose Part 6**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_Thank you for all the reviews - apologies to anyone who previously tried to review without an ff.net registration and couldn't; this wasn't personal, the authors just hadn't realised that ff.net even had such a setting! This has now been unset. _

This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :) 

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Snape sat and stared at the fire, the book lying in his lap forgotten. It had been mostly there to dissuade the other Gryffindors in the common room from disturbing him, and was easy to forget. 

Behind him he could hear a dozen conversations crossing over each other, from the extraordinarily mundane dissection of the Chudley Cannon's latest game to a bizarre conversation about ... well, he wasn't entirely certain, but he thought perhaps that Brown and Patil - no, he reminded himself, think of them as Lavender and Parvati - were discussing cosmetics. He shuddered to himself, suddenly profoundly grateful that, given that fate insisted on playing hopscotch through his life, it had been Hermione Granger to share that fate rather than one of those two. Or Potter. Or Longbottom. 

The fire licked up around a recently added log; the bark caught aflame first and spat with a sudden vehemence. The flames danced upwards, riding the currents of air, licking through the slowly charring wood as they rose from the glowing red embers above the growing mound of ashes. 

"... Hermione. Hermione, are you awake?" 

Snape looked up, away from the fire, startled by the hand shaking his shoulder. Weasley - Ron - stood beside the armchair, frowning. 

"You were miles away, Hermione, what were you thinking about? I've had to call your name three times already - do you want a game of chess?" 

Grateful for ... Ron's barrelling speech that asked a question and then allowed no time for an answer before heading into the next, Snape thought for a moment. He thought perhaps he could get away with refusing - dinner had established that "Hermione" was still feeling the aftereffects of the accident in the Potions room earlier that day. He really did not feel like trying to work out how Hermione played chess; if this was a regular part of evenings in the common room, he supposed that he should make sure that they played a couple of games over the weekend so that he could work out her style. 

"Not now, Ron. I'm ... tired; I need to see, uh, McGonagall before I go to bed, in any case. I'd better go now." 

Ron grinned. "Looks like you're getting awfully familiar, Hermione. Being Head Girl going to your head is it?" Snape frowned. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Don't think I've ever heard you call old McGonagall anything but 'Professor McGonagall'. It's about time you came down to the level of the rest of us!" The grin on the boy's face widened. 

Snape winced inwardly; of course Hermione would use the proper title for her teachers. At least he hadn't referred to McGonagall as Minerva. That would have been too much even for Weasley to accept. He got up and waved a hand irritably. 

"It was a mistake. I told you, I'm tired. See you at breakfast." 

"Sure, see you." Weasley headed back to Potter and the others, all still apparently discussing the Cannons. Snape smothered a sigh of relief; no awkward questions this time. It wasn't far beyond the truth, either. Keeping up the pretence of being Hermione Granger was almost more wearing than a meeting with Voldemort; trying to remember how Miss Granger behaved - when, in truth, he had paid very little attention to her outside the classroom. Even in the classroom he'd been concerned with matters other than her general demeanour. 

Snape left the common room, heading out through the Fat Lady into the corridors of Hogwarts. Clearly, he had no need to go and see McGonagall - Professor McGonagall; he reminded himself, again, to use the proper title even in his thoughts. He simply hadn't been able to take being in the common room any longer; the conversations were nothing he was prepared to take a risk on being involved with, and the longer he remained there, the more tense he became - not only worried about making a slip himself, but also wondering how Hermione was dealing with the staff meeting. Dumbledore would probably steer her if necessary but, all the same, his own life depended upon her acting ability. 

The cause of half his tension had been dinner; thankfully he had spent enough dinners gazing around the hall to be well aware of where he would be expected to sit to eat; even if he hadn't been, Weasley's urging would have told him all he needed to know. Picking through vegetables and having to pass up on the meat piled on serving plates was hard to deal with, though. Fortunately, this body appeared to be quite happy with the quantity of vegetables and potatoes he'd fed it - his mind was less convinced that he'd had a proper meal, though. 

Perhaps it was less the food than the surroundings - the incessant chatter and inane questions had not helped in the slightest. It had started with Longbottom's earnest questions, hoping that 'she' was alright, that 'Snape' hadn't been too unpleasant. Potter had chimed in, with Weasley passing unhelpful comments about Potions classes. Snape had barely managed to avoid snarling back at them, settling instead for a non-commital comment that he was fine, just tired, that he had had to help clear up the classroom. None of the boys appeared to find it odd that Hermione had been the one to clear up, rather than Neville, whose cauldron had been responsible for the mess. 

Snape dragged his mind back to the present; he'd been wandering aimlessly through the corridors, and found that he had made his way towards the Headmaster's rooms. He wondered again how the meeting had gone, then was momentarily startled by a door opening just in front of him. He started to edge past, not inclined to be caught peering into the staff toilets, when he realised that he was ... no, Hermione was coming out of the mens toilets. A flicker of amusement crossed his face as he realised how much tea she had probably had to drink through the meeting. This was usually his first port of call after staff meetings as well. There was little else do but drink tea whilst the other members of staff whittered on, taking twice as long - if not longer - as actually necessary to dispatch the business of the meeting. 

Hermione glared at him; she really was getting better at that expression, he thought. 

"I do _not_ want to talk about it," she said, the words pratically spat out. Snape suddenly understood the implications - and almost smiled at her discomfort until he abruptly noticed that, presumably by auto-suggestion, he was faced with the same need. 

"Fine," he answered shortly. "Anything I need to know about the meeting?" 

"No," sighed Hermione, "it went much the way you said it would." She glanced at her watch. "And you need to get back to Gryffindor unless you want a detention for being out after hours," she added, with a hint of delighted malice in her voice. 

This time it was Snape's turn to glare, although he had been aware that he needed to get back - and not just because it was late. He wasn't sure where the nearest girls' toilets were, and suspected that he'd prefer the privacy of the Head Girl's bathroom anyway. He turned and walked away rapidly; a moment later, he heard a measured stride heading in the opposite direction. 

Half an hour later, Snape looked at the bed in Hermione's room with some trepidation. The cat didn't appear to have moved since the last time he was in the room, and looked no more inclined to leave the bed. Snape frowned, then decided that direct action was probably the best option; approaching the bed he tried to remember the cat's name. 

"Crook ... Crookshanks, that's it. Crookshanks, move." The command had little effect, beyond the lazy opening of a single eye. Half a blink later, the cat seemed as asleep as ever. Snape stood now beside the bed; perhaps even more direct action? 

The more direct action worked, and Crookshanks headed for the armchair by the fire - now little more than a collection of glowing ashes - as Snape headed back to the bathroom to find something to clean the scratches on his arm. He still hadn't quite got to grips with Hermione's wand, despite surreptitiously practising earlier in the evening. Fortunately the wand didn't react badly to his use; it simply didn't seem to work particularly well. Some more practice should deal with the problem, and he planned to wake early in order to do so. 

He opened the cabinet above the sink, pulling the door open with rather more force than was actually needed. Muttering to himself, trying to fathom out how he was going to deal with the cat on a day to day basis, Snape looked at the assorted bottles and tubes in the cabinet. Most of them were completely unfamiliar, clearly Muggle mixtures for ... he looked a little more closely, curious as to what they contained. 

Chanel seemed to be the manufacturer - too many bottles and tubes with the name on for them all to be the same thing. He picked one up to look more closely. 'Lait Tendre. DŽmaquillant doux visage et yeux'. Gentle milk; makeup remover face and eyes. Snape put the tube down hastily, thankful that Hermione didn't wear makeup - although he did wonder why she had a tube of makeup remover, in that case. Similarly, why she didn't simply use one of the multitude of charms apparently available for the purpose - at least, that was what he thought Brown and - no, Lavender and Parvati - had been discussing. 

Snape berated himself for a moment, trying to drive in the need to refer to students by their first names - even in his mind. For this to succeed, he needed to think like Miss Granger, little though that appealed. The wrong name would be harder to explain than many other errors. He distracted himself by looking again for something to clean the scratches, although these had largely dried by now. Nothing obvious came to hand, so he resorted to water alone, aware that he was tired. 

Returning to the room, Snape noted that Crookshanks had remained in the chair. One less battle for the evening, at least. He drew back the covers on the bed and discovered an internal battle. Under the covers was a handful of cotton; Miss Granger obviously wore nightclothes. Logical, really. As Head Girl there was a chance she would be awoken to deal with school issues, and she apparently hadn't learnt the relevant spells to dress in less time than it took to awake. It didn't occur to him that Hermione mught actually prefer to wear nightclothes. 

The problem remained; whilst he was getting used to her wand, he would have to wear her nightclothes. He sighed and reached for them. 

"At least it's sensible," he muttered to Crookshanks. The cat seemed unconcerned, but Snape was nonethless relieved. Some of the more extravagant concoctions he had seen on sale on the occasions he forced himself into Madame Malkin's for new robes would have been almost more than he could deal with this evening, the connotations too fraught and complex. 

Nonetheless, the nightdress presented its own difficulties. He would have to undress in order to put it on. Snape swore, low and fluently, as he struggled with the idea of removing Hermione's clothes. This seemed somehow the worst invasion of her - and his - privacy so far. Crookshanks cracked open one eye at the cursing, apparently curious to see what the fuss was about, then went back to sleep when no threat was obvious. Snape almost blessed the cat, its continued sleep giving him an idea; he doused the lights and changed in the dark. If he couldn't see what he was undressing, he could pretend nothing had changed. 

Morning came faster than he expected; eighteen-year-old girls' bodies clearly demanded more sleep than he was used to getting. Snape dressed rapidly, avoiding the mirror and trying not to think about what he was doing. Familiarity would eventually deal with the problem, he hoped - and familiarity would happen, he was sure. Somewhere in the depths of sleep he had come up with a few possible solutions to their problem, which he would need to discuss with Miss Granger, but he suspected that only one would turn out to work - the one which would take the longest, naturally. 

Fate was definitely playing with him. 

Breakfast was loud; too many students all busy discussing the day ahead, yesterday, and countless other topics of conversation around him. Snape was startled to see Hermione at the staff tables; had she never noticed that he avoided breakfast as far as possible? He would have avoided this morning's breakfast - if he had been given a choice in the matter. Between Potter, Weasley, and the demands of his new metabolism, he had been dragged down to the Hall with the other students. Harry and Ron. Snape shook his head, and repeated the names to himself. Call them Harry and Ron, he thought fiercely. No other option available, slips would be expensive. 

He looked at the bacon piled high on platters and looked again at the plate of toast, eggs, mushroom and tomatoes in front of him, then sighed. A sideways glance up to the staff table confirmed that Hermione would notice if he took so much as a rasher; Pott- Harry and Ron would certainly notice. 

He reached for another platter instead and added another egg; ignoring the chatter around him, he concentrated on the food on his plate. Breakfast was usually no more than coffee for him, but the insistent hunger he'd woken up with suggested that Miss Granger's body required rather more than coffee first thing in the morning. He stole another glance up at the staff table; that much, at least, she had worked out. Hermione was toying with a mug, gazing around the Hall as she sipped, ignoring the food around her. She noticed him watching her and glared at him. In character, but was there some particular reason for her glare? Snape didn't think he'd done anything out of character for her this morning; certainly none of her friends were asking whether there was anything wrong. All the conversation he'd had this morning had consisted of greetings and little more - apparently Hermione was no more of a morning conversationalist than he was. 

Coffee. He needed coffee. It was the one thing missing from the tables - long ago, one of the school matrons had decreed that it was inappropriate for growing children and, ever since, all that was offered to the students was tea. Weak tea at that, and the only other option was water or milk. None of the options appealed, but Snape had poured a glass of water anyway and sipped at it now, having finished the last of his breakfast. 

"Miss Granger, a word if you please." A smoothly malevolent voice behind him almost startled him, and he looked round to face himself. Hermione had left the staff table and had come up silently behind him. She was now standing, looking down at him with an expectant expression on her face. As Snape stood, she turned and strode out of the Hall, clearly expecting him to follow. 

"I'll let McGonagall know, if you're late to class, Hermione," hissed Harry. 

Snape nodded and supposed a reply was expected. "Thanks, uh, Harry." Transfiguration class followed breakfast - that much he had deciphered from Hermione's cryptic chart of classes and studying. It wasn't an experience he was looking forward to. 

Outside the doors of the Hall, the noise of breakfast was suddenly abated. Hermione stood waiting for him by one of the corridors leading down to the dungeons. As he approached, she looked down at him. 

"Have you _ever_ heard of a hairbrush?" she asked him angrily. "You may not pay any attention to _this_ appearance," she gestured at herself, "but you are going to have to pay attention to mine unless you really want other people to pay more attention than they should. Either learn to use a hairbrush or learn the charms that will take care of it," she bit out. 

Snape grimaced; he'd forgotten that being Miss Granger would require the usual female rituals in the morning. Rather than apologise, though, he followed up with his own questions. 

"What were you doing at breakfast, Miss Granger? Surely in the last seven years you cannot have been so entranced by the scintillating conversation of other student that you have failed to notice that I am never in the Hall at this hour of the morning unless I have absolutely no other choice - I have quite enough contact with students without requiring their company first thing in the morning." 

"I wanted to see how you were doing - and it's just as well I did," retorted Hermione pointedly. "Harry and Ron won't have noticed that you hadn't bothered to brush your hair, but Lavender and Parvati certainly will. I wouldn't be surprised if Professor McGonagall noticed in class as well - hardly the way to make sure no-one notices the switch," she added brusquely. "You've just got time to get back to my - your bedroom and deal with it before you get to class. I'll see you later; we are meeting after lunch to go over this afternoon's lesson, aren't we?" 

That last question stripped away some of Hermione's bravado, and Snape suddenly realised she wasn't facing the situation with quite as much equanimity as he thought. The realisation that he wasn't the only one feeling overwhelmed was surprisingly cheering. He nodded and, as she wheeled away towards the dungeons, took the hint and headed back to Gryffindor Tower before classes to use the few minutes break to practice again with Hermione's wand - this time trying to tame her hair. He had more or less succeeded - and her hair was certainly looking tidier - by the time he reached McGonagall's class. 

He had been carefully _not_ thinking about this class; transfiguration had not been his best subject at school, and he had not been looking forward to this. Still, he mused, he had passed his transfiguration NEWTS with a reasonable grade - and how much could he have forgotten, after all? 

The answer, he found to his chagrin, was rather a lot. The spellbook in front of him was not being particularly co-operative in returning to its original form - one of Hagrid's smaller beasts. He could manage the transformation from animate to inanimate without a problem; inanimate to animate was more difficult. 

He wasn't worse than the rest of the class, true, but - from the puzzled looks on McGonagall's face - he was not up to Hermione's usual standard. He scowled, realising that he was going to have homework of his own, practising transfiguration, whilst Hermione got on with hers. When he looked up, McGonagall was standing in front of him. 

"Miss Granger, is everything all right?" she asked, concerned. 

"I'm fine, Professor," he answered then, resisting his inclination never to give explanations, elaborated. "Just tired; there was an accident in Potions yesterday and I didn't sleep well afterwards. I'll be fine, I'm just having difficulty concentrating." 

McGonagall appeared to take his explanation at face value and simply said, "Very well, Miss Granger" before she turned to deal with Longbottom, who appeared to be no more competent at transfiguration than he was at potions. 

The practical exercise was soon over, to Snape's relief, and the class settled to McGonagall's lecture on the importance of procedure on the shifts required to create animate objects from the inanimate. Snape scribbled notes with the rest of the class, conscious that Miss Granger would need his notes to learn from in the evenings if she was to do homework and keep up with her class during the year. 

A whispered query from his right ensured that even if Snape had wanted to do Hermione's homework - perish the thought - there was a very simple reason why he would not have been able to. 

"Hermione, what on earth are you writing?" came the hoarse whisper from Ron. "I can't read it!" 

"Why are you reading my notes?" asked Snape in a similar whisper. 

"Because I've got lost as usual," was the exasperated reply. "I can't keep up with her!" 

"Sorry," muttered Snape, not sorry at all, "it's a new shorthand I learnt over the summer. Makes it easier to keep up. Get the notes from Harry after class or something." Ron glared at him, and returned to his own notes. 

"Thanks," he said with ill-grace. 

Snape was rather pleased with the quick reply. Handwriting was obviously related to the mind of the individual, not the body writing. The notes he scribbled during class were a reasonable fascimile of his own handwriting - which was not vastly dissimilar to Muggle shorthand, he had found once - and nothing like the relatively clear, open, handwriting of Miss Granger. 

The class was over, eventually, and Snape returned with the rest of the Gryffindors to the Tower to leave his books before lunch - a meal almost as loud as breakfast, and almost as indigestible under Hermione's glare from the staff table. Returning to Gryffindor after lunch, to collect more books before heading down to the dungeon to meet Hermione, he hadn't quite reached the Tower when he found himself called back. 

"Miss Granger, I believe we had an appointment?" 

Snape turned and saw himself standing by an open door, a scowl on his face and his arms crossed. Hermione was clearly not happy about something. 


	7. The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

**The Fire and the Rose Part 7**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Friday morning arrived and did not find Hermione Granger rested in the slightest. 

She had left Snape in the corridor the night before and headed for his rooms like a fugitive seeking sanctuary before reaction to the day's events could set in. Had she been less tired and stressed she might have taken more time to observe her surroundings. As it was, she simply had the impression of a large, spacious area which was both more comfortable and more cluttered that she would have expected, and infused with an almost tangible sense of the presence of the man himself. 

Firmly dismissing the concept of exploration, Hermione had made enough investigations to discover the bedroom. With a blatant disregard of the obvious facts, she told herself that things would look better in the morning, and simply prayed that Slytherin House would make it through the night without needing for assistance of its Head of House. 

Her - very brief - survey of Snape's bedroom had failed to reveal pyjamas or a nightshirt... or sleeping attire of any description, in fact. Which meant that he slept... well... _naked_. After her experience in the men's toilets, Hermione had thought that she was ready for just about anything. 

Apparently, she had been wrong. 

She had swallowed and decided that there was in character and there was _in character_. After all, she thought savagely, it's not as if anyone else was an expert on what the man wore in bed. That night, the Potions Master would be wearing underwear. And liking it. 

Gingerly, she had undressed and slid under the covers, where she found sleep distinctly elusive. Not only was she in a strange bed, but her body refused point blank to relax. She had counted sheep. She had tried a number of relaxation techniques that her father recommended for the drill-phobic. But still she tossed and turned, dozing, and then starting awake at the unfamiliar cracks and creaks of the room. 

_No wonder he spends so much time prowling the corridors at night._

At half past four in the morning, after a few hours of fitful sleep, her semi-conscious search for a solution to their current predicament had finally brought her to full wakefulness. She examined the conclusion and miserably abandoned all hope of further sleep. Deciding that she might as well make the best of it she cast _Lumos_ and had a brief look at the table beside the bed. There were three or four books with markers in them at various points. Selecting _A Historie of Potion Making in Northern Bohemia_, she began to read. 

By six thirty her eyes were heavy, her mouth tasted foul and her face itched. She decided that she might as well get dressed and go to breakfast, despite the fact that she knew that he rarely appeared. Apart from anything else, she ought to check that he hadn't done anything dreadful to Gryffindor Tower overnight. She put down the book and scratched her face, freezing when her hand encountered rough stubble. 

_Shaving._

Sighing, she pulled herself out of bed and made her way into the bathroom. One look in the mirror confirmed the need to deal with the problem. Some unshaven men could look distinctly sexy. Snape was not one of them. Five o'clock shadow on him was definitely not a pretty sight. 

There was a worn, velvet case next to the sink. She opened it and her heart sank. 

A cut throat razor. 

_Of course. What else would he use?_

There was no denying that at that moment she was more than tempted to slit Snape's throat, but reluctantly admitted that doing it whilst she was actually occupying his body was probably not a good idea. And of all the charms that she ever thought she would need, one for removing unwanted facial hair was not one of them. At least not before she was fifty. Gritting her teeth she retrieved his wand from the bedroom. 

Back in the bathroom, she regarded the razor with trepidation. So far the only spells she had cast with his wand were simple ones. It felt a bit odd, but they seemed to work properly. Transfiguration was a little more tricky. Nervously, she pointed at the wickedly sharp piece of metal. Power flowed through the wand, a little sluggishly, then it shimmered, and blurred, and turned into a conventional, wet, safety razor. 

Hermione felt a little better. She had, after all, wet shaved her own legs before without severing an artery. And she had watched her father use a razor. She found something that looked like shaving foam and lathered her face. How hard could this be? 

Harder than it looked was the answer. The strong bones of his cheeks and the total lack of spare flesh gave his face an unexpectedly uneven surface. She drew the razor across his skin in hesitant, jerky movements. She moved on to his neck, gingerly working round his Adam's apple as the angle of her head made it difficult for her to see what she was doing. Then she struggled with the awkward, small movements over his top lip and chin. She rinsed off the shaving foam and hissed in annoyance at the obvious missed patches. 

She picked up the shaving brush and started again. This time the friction was significantly less, and in her surprise she got the angle of the blade wrong. A tell tale sting told her that she had cut herself. Muttering a curse under her breath, she continued more carefully. Rinsing a second time showed her that the stubble had been dealt with. 

Which just left the thin trickles of blood making their way down her face. 

Picking up the wand again she cast the simplest of all possible healing spells. Fate appeared to be with her - or at least temporarily ignoring her. The cuts healed without trace. She breathed a sigh of relief. She could not have faced telling Snape that he had cut himself shaving. 

This would need practice, she thought gloomily. As would the use of his wand. Despite his remarks about _foolish wand waving_ she wasn't going to get away with not using it at all. She got some more practice by transfiguring a quill into a toothbrush. Training and inclination made it nearly impossible for her to go out in the morning without cleaning her teeth. She briefly considered the question of a shower. In its favour, it might wake her up. Against it, it would mean being... well... _not dressed_. After a moment she decided that the issue of Snape Unclothed could wait for the evening. Or at least until after she had spoken to him about a solution to this situation. Just in case he had had an inspiration.... 

Tired, bad tempered, preoccupied and with the beginnings of a foul headache, Hermione made her way to the Great Hall and breakfast. Seating herself in his place, she glanced reflexively towards the Gryffindors. He was sitting where he should be, piling food onto a plate. She noted a covert glance in her direction as his hand hovered momentarily over the bacon. 

Don't you dare, she thought, maliciously catching his eye. His hand moved towards the eggs. _And what in Hell's name had he done - or _not_ done - to her hair?_. Her headache intensified. 

"Ah, Severus," came the cheery voice from further up the table. 

For the first time in her life, Hermione was less than thrilled to hear the voice of Albus Dumbledore. Never at her most responsive in the morning, she just didn't feel up to his unique brand of cheeriness. 

"What a pleasure to see you at breakfast for a change. You'll be having your usual, I suppose?" 

She simply nodded and a large mug of black coffee appeared in front of her. Nothing else did, so she assumed that _was_ breakfast as far as Snape was concerned. Which was just as well. She felt too queasy to eat. 

She sipped at the coffee distractedly, feeling the caffeine hit somewhere at the back of her skull. By the time she had finished her head still ached and her temper was not noticeably sweeter, but she did at least feel awake. The Gryffindors began to file out and she stood herself, aiming to intercept Snape before he left. She reached him as he was still sipping at a glass of water. Her hair looked even worse close to. And she realised that he hadn't bothered with makeup. No wonder she looked a mess. She supposed there was no hope for the makeup at the moment. But that hair _had_ to be dealt with. 

"Miss Granger, a word if you please," she stated, and marched out of the Hall. 

Perversely pleased with the way that she had summarily dispatched him and hoping that she hadn't sounded too nervous about the lunchtime meeting, she strode towards the dungeons and her first class as Snape. 

Theoretically, there should be no problem. First years. Combined Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. The youngest students of the two most biddable houses. None of them should have sufficient experience of Snape to be able to detect inconsistencies of behaviour. And she was teaching an easy potion. 

However, as she put her hand on the classroom door nerves threatened to overwhelm her. The effort of pushing them down fixed her face in a scowl as she entered and swept to the front of the class. She was rewarded with a sea of faces whose expressions ranged from the nervously wary to the frankly terrified. 

She stared at them wondering what on earth to say. 

"Today we will be making the standard potion to cure warts." They just looked at her. 

She began to panic. _What were they waiting for?_ She wondered what Snape would do, and then remembered the staff meeting. 

"What are you waiting for?" she asked coldly. "Written permission from your parents? Get the list of ingredients from page 47 of your textbook and begin." There was a flurry of activity as books, quills and parchments were found. 

The lesson passed peacefully enough. No one poisoned anyone, no cauldrons were melted and most of the potions worked as specified in the instructions. Hermione prowled the room, nervous and strung out from lack of sleep and an unexpected injection of caffeine early in the day. She even managed to remember to find reasons to take house points from people. Nobody looked at her quizzically. In fact, she noticed, that nobody looked at her at all. When she finally dismissed the class the departure was only one step removed from headlong flight. 

Her head still ached and her shoulders were tense, both from nerves and from the strain of holding her posture upright. Her back muscles hadn't had this much exercise since her three ill-fated years of ballet lessons as a child. The pain did nothing for her temper as she strode to lunch. She barely registered the students, skittering out of her way as she passed. 

At the staff table she ate mechanically, unable to pull her gaze away from Harry, Ron and herself. The food sat heavily in her stomach, reminding her that she shortly had to teach not only her friends, but her teacher. She watched the three get up and leave together. She remembered that she had arranged to meet Snape, but he was heading purposefully for Gryffindor Tower. In sudden panicked fury she thought that he was avoiding her, intending to just abandon her to the situation. 

Oh no you don't, you bastard, she thought, slipping away from the table and pursuing him. She caught up with him just before he got to the Tower. 

"Miss Granger, I believe we had an appointment." She leant against a doorframe, crossing her arms and trying to concentrate on the fact that she was furious rather than terrified. 

He looked startled, then angry and obviously bit off what he was about to say. 

"I'm sorry... Professor...," he managed. "I was on my way back to collect some books. I assumed that you would want to meet in the classroom." 

She just nodded. Part of her was aware that the real Snape would probably have taken points off her for that, but relief meant that she couldn't quite bring herself to do that. 

"Very well." She tried for curt. It seemed to succeed. "Get your books and we'll talk on the way to the dungeons. Given that we are both now here. Be quick," she added with a hint of malice. 

He nodded, and left. Hermione resisted the temptation to massage her temples. Her headache seemed to be getting worse. A few moments later he reappeared, laden with books. Together they headed for class. 

By the time they reached the classroom Hermione had a very clear idea of what was to be taught that afternoon. She also felt like a babysitter for anxious parents. Only her ingrained habit of respect towards teachers prevented her from snapping at him that she was well aware where the Infirmary was. That, and the fact that she was aware that he was deliberately trying to irritate her enough to make her behave like him. 

She unconsciously lengthened her stride, taking a deep breath and blanking the girl beside her. _Think Snape_ she told herself, perfectly conscious of the irony. She reached the door at speed, pushed it open and entered. She allowed her momentum to carry her to the front of the class registering Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Harry... no _Potter, Weasley, Longbottom...._ She turned on her heel and saw that Snape had lagged behind a little. She raised an eyebrow. 

"In your own time, Miss Granger. We can all wait." She saw his eyes glitter suddenly. Irritation, nerves, caffeine and headache all came together in one satisfied and slightly vindictive smile. _Now he knows what it feels like._

Snape hurriedly took his seat next to Har.. _Potter_. She noted his brief sympathetic smile in Snape's direction, debated making a remark, and decided to let it go. 

"This afternoon," she declared, "you will be attempting to brew Polyjuice Potion _again_. I expect today's lesson to be markedly less dramatic than yesterday. I trust I do not need to reiterate the basics. Please begin." 

Malfoy was smirking in the direction of Neville Longbottom. She itched to say something and remembered that she couldn't. Her scowl at that was utterly genuine. 

It was not an understatement to say that the lesson was a nightmare. Even by the standards of Potions classes. 

She was conscious the entire time of Snape's presence, knowing that he was watching her, judging her performance. Whenever she turned his eyes were following her. And worse, his hand was in the air. Suggestion after suggestion, carefully disguised as innocent questions about method and practice, interrupted the class. 

Eventually she growled, "Miss Granger, I suggest that you read those books that you so assiduously carry around with you and leave me to teach the class. You can then destroy your posture to some purpose, and I will get some peace," hoping to discourage him. Harry and Ron just concentrated intently on the their cauldron avoiding her eye. Ron muttered something in Snape's direction. She devoutly hoped that it was "shut up." 

His continual distractions kept her edgy and off balance, which in turn made her intolerant with the rest of the class. You would think that at least _one_ of them could follow simple instructions without messing it up, she thought despairingly, as she deducted five points from Dean Thomas through gritted teeth. The fact that she couldn't take her frustration out on the grinning Slytherins only made it worse. 

She was about to do another circuit of the classroom, when she saw to her horror that Neville was, once again, about to put the boomslang skin in at the wrong time. 

_Neville, for Gods' sake. Why do you have to do this to me today?_

She waited for Snape to stop him, as she would have had she been ... well... herself. He made no move, but his expression clearly indicated that he knew what was going on. Her frayed temper finally gave way. 

"_Longbottom_," she roared. 

Neville froze. She made her way round to the cauldron, and slammed her hand into the table top making him jump back a little. 

"Did _nothing_ about yesterday register with you, Mr Longbottom? And you, Miss Granger," she said rounding on Snape. "I would have thought that, under the circumstances, you would be _more_ careful rather than _less_ around Longbottom. If you paid attention to your partner, rather than what was happening elsewhere in the room, we might actually succeed in getting through a lesson without a major accident. Mr Longbottom, that will be twenty points from Gryffindor. Miss Granger that will be twenty points from Gryffindor _and_ detention this evening." 

A stunned silence greeted this outburst. She surveyed the room will undisguised ill-humour. She could see the beginnings of triumphant smirks on the faces of the Malfoy team. _Enough,_ she thought. 

"And Mr Malfoy, I would advise you and your friends also not to try my patience any further today." The smile froze on Malfoy's face, half formed. _Good_. "Get back to work," she finished with a snap. 

To her absolute astonishment everyone meekly obeyed. Even Snape watched Neville rather than her, and she saw him intervene on a couple of occasions to prevent further mistakes. She continued to prowl the room, trying not to think about the fact that she had just given herself detention. Let alone the number of points she had taken from her own house. 

However, the lesson finished without incident. All the potions were successful. No more house points were lost by anybody. As the last of the class filed out she leant back against the desk and closed her eyes, completely wrung out by the day. 

Eight o'clock that evening found her pacing the empty Potions room, waiting for Snape to arrive and trying to forget a chance remark by Minerva McGonagall to Ermengarde Sprout, overheard at dinner. She was distracting herself by muttering that she would keep her temper. _Would_. The door opened and a sulky looking teenage girl walked in without bothering to knock. 

_He didn't knock. I _always_ knock._

That little detail was all it took to shatter her fragile self control. 

"_Miss Granger_," she said, acid dripping from every word. "I was under the impression that I was in the habit of knocking before I entered a room. Do please tell me at what point today I was cured of it." 

Snape glared right back at her. 

"Somewhere around the point that I started to mollycoddle my students, I imagine, _Professor Snape_," he retorted, matching her tone. 

"I'm astonished I managed to do anything to _your_ classes with you barracking me every five minutes," she returned furiously. "And whilst we're on the subject of classes, what about _mine_? I overheard Professor McGonagall telling Professor Sprout that I was _not on top form_ today. What did she mean by that exactly?" 

Snape drew breath to answer, but Hermione's anger, suppressed all day, just swept her on. 

"And what about my hair? And did it ever occur to you that I own makeup for a reason, not just to decorate the bathroom? And have you seen how much food you're eating? Do you think I want to be the size of a hippogriff when I get my body back?" 

She stopped pacing and collapsed in a chair, uncaring as to whether she had adopted the proper Snape posture. Snape himself just looked at her impassively. 

"Have you quite finished?" The voice was cold, but calm. 

She waved a hand at him in dismissal. 

"There are more important considerations than your vanity. Have you ever seen me rebuke Draco Malfoy, for example? Have you ever seen me be _understanding_ about careless errors? Have you ever seen me _invite_ a class to do anything? And may I take this opportunity to mention that I regularly change my clothes? Do you have any idea of the danger we are both in? Have you truly grasped the consequences to both of us if we are discovered?" 

It occurred to her that Snape's voice sounded more tense than angry. She looked at him, straightening in her chair a little. 

"This is not a game, Miss Granger," he said, sounding tired. "You do not just have to _pretend_ to be me. You actually have to _be_ me." 

"And you have to _be_ me," she pointed out more calmly. "It may seem like vanity to you, but I am an eighteen year old girl. Being neat and tidy and doing well in class are important to me. And people will notice if you neglect that." 

They were both silent. 

"Do you have any ideas about how to cure this?" she asked after a while, hoping against hope that he would have a solution. 

He gave a sigh. 

"Yes, but it has a distinct drawback." 

That sounded nastily like the same conclusion she had reached in the middle of the night. 

"Mandrake root then," she stated flatly. 

She was gratified to see his eyes widen in surprise. 

"It is the solution that is most likely to be reliably effective," he confirmed. 

Mandrake root was the chief constituent in potions to restore people to their natural forms. Hermione remembered being dosed with it once before, when she had been petrified by the basilisk. Unfortunately it was now late September and the mandrakes were only seedlings. They could not be used in any potion until they were mature. Which would be in about Easter of the following year. Which meant that they were stuck like this for at least six months. Unless they could find another solution. 

_Six months. Six whole months of being Snape._

She didn't know whether to laugh, scream or cry. 

"Oh Gods," she said weakly. 

"Indeed," he agreed. 

She bit her lip, then abruptly stopped as it occurred to her that Snape didn't do that. She expected that he didn't bury his head in his hands and wail either. She settled for closing her eyes and praying for a miracle. Or at least for her head not to explode. 

Her attention was brought back to herself by a voice saying "Drink this." She opened her eyes to see Snape offering her a glass of dark red liquid. 

"What is it?" she asked, half hoping that it was poison. Or at least a six month sleeping draught. 

"Willowbark and valerian compound. We need to discuss some things and I thought that it might be easier if you didn't have a tension headache." 

His tone was indifferent, but she was grateful for the gesture. She drank the bitter liquid and felt the tight band across her forehead begin to loosen. 

"How did you know?" she asked, wondering absurdly if their connection gave him some sort of special insight. 

"Lucky guess," he said with a faint hint of irony. "I have never yet finished a Friday without a headache." 

As the pain receded rationality began to kick in. 

"We're going to need to meet regularly then," she said thoughtfully, "and I can't keep giving you detention. Even you don't do that to me on a daily basis. People will comment." 

"Yes," he remarked blandly, "although I confess that I found some irony in the fact that I would probably _not_ have given you detention this afternoon, had we been in our accustomed roles. I would certainly have deducted points from both you and Mr Longbottom, however." 

She glared at him, before she internally conceded the black humour. She felt her mouth reluctantly twitch in acknowledgement. For an instant she felt a flash of perfect understanding between them. It was most disconcerting. 

"A research project, then," he continued. "Something that will justify frequent meetings and will give us a chance to start working on something that will work faster than mandrake root. "She looked at him sharply. "Yes," he said, with evident malice, "I _do_ indeed expect you to make a contribution to this effort." 

She just nodded. Anything to avoid six months of... this. 

"We should meet over the weekend to work out the details," she proposed. "How abut tomorrow afternoon? We were planning to go to Hogsmeade but you should be able to get out of it if you tell Harry and Ron that I gave you an essay to do and you need to go to the library. They'll believe that. Of both of us," she added rather pointedly. 

"Agreed," he said shortly. He then reached into the bag and placed a sheaf of parchment on the table. "Here. You'll want these as well." She looked at them in disbelief. 

"What's this?" she asked. 

"Your transfiguration class notes. And your homework." 

She looked at the scrawl in front of her. 

_How exactly was she supposed to make sense of this?_

She fought the impulse to sigh audibly. 

_Details indeed._


	8. Surrender to the Rapture

**The Fire and the Rose Part 8**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Snape let the door of his room slam shut behind him and leant back against it, eyes shut tightly as he let his bag fall to the floor. He winced at the sound of the books crashing from it and shook his head wearily. 

If he had thought the day had dragged, the evening had seemed interminable. Firstly his meeting with Miss Granger had required the inevitable discussion of the likely length of time he was - _they_ were, he corrected himself - going to have to spend keeping up this farce. 

Six months. He groaned and was surprised - as he still was occasionally - by the sounds that he now made. Six months of evenings in the Gryffindor Common Room. The thought of a study project with Miss Granger suddenly became profoundly appealing; peace and quiet in the Potions rooms. In his _own_ rooms, he thought suddenly, his gaze sweeping round the room. Rooms where he knew where everything was, where orange pincushions didn't usurp his bed - he glared at Crookshanks, who was oblivious to the malice being directed at him. 

The malice vanished and Snape laughed at the cat's complete indifference to him; indifference was bliss, he thought, exhausted by the effort of pretending to be an eighteen-year-old girl. Not even a normal eighteen-year-old girl at that; he had been listening to some of the Gryffindor girls and had tried to join in. Whatever it was that he had said, it obviously had not quite sounded right - thankfully, the others just thought it was one of the Head Girl's periodic attempts to join in conversation and it seemed that Miss Granger was no better at it than he was. 

Snape rubbed his head, still leaning against the door. He should have made up some of the valerian and willowbark infusion for himself; it would appear that, no matter what body he inhabited or what life he tried to lead, he was destined always to finish Friday with a headache. 

Perhaps Miss Granger would have something he could take. 

Leaving the books in an untidy heap - tomorrow was Saturday, he would worry about it then - he headed for the bathroom. Again. He seemed destined to spend his time as Miss Granger in her bathroom, he thought idly. Rooting through the various bottles and packages in the cupboard - Tampax? Looked vaguely like cotton wool or something - he found a blue package claiming to provide pain relief. He opened it, expecting perhaps a powder that he could take. A metallic strip fell out of the box; he turned it over, curious, to find a series of tablets on the other side. 

Snape frowned, confused, and then caught sight of his expression in the mirror. Thirty-six hours ago, he had been possessed of a frown that would send children scurrying for cover and into silence. Now ... well, now the best that could be said was that he looked just ... confused. He shook his head, turning his attention back to the pain relief tablets. 

In his experience, tablets - if you had to use them - came in bottles. Still, Muggle creations could not be so much harder to deal with. In fact, he worked it out quite rapidly and soon had two tablets in his hand. He put them in his mouth, intending to swallow them, and grimaced. The taste was revolting; and his headache abruptly got worst as he screwed up his face in distaste. 

He made a mental note to retrieve some valerian and willowbark from the Potions rooms the next day, after his meeting with Miss Granger. Harry and Ron had been determined this evening to drag 'Hermione' out to Hogsmeade tomorrow, giving him some insight into just how much time the girl spent in the library in the process. He had finally managed to stop their tiresome insistence by snapping at them; fortunately, his response was clearly not unexpected. If anything, Harry had seemed to think he had held his temper for longer than usual. Most of his headache came from this mental juggling act, trying to predict the sort of behaviour Miss Granger was likely to indulge in - and when she would do so. He was starting to find that she was not, perhaps, as different from himself as he might have expected ... which was disconcerting. He really wasn't convinced that he wanted to find things in common with a young girl. 

Even her bookcases reminded him of his own - in minature, and lacking both the finances and a couple of decades yet to catch up with his collection, but the potential was there. He made himself leave the bathroom to go and have a closer look - he had only given them a cursory glance last night, too preoccupied with the situation to pay attention to such details. 

All this thought was very well and proper, but it did nothing more than delay the inevitable. 

He eyed the bed with dislike again; insomnia brought its own problems but he would have welcomed it now. Even his headache was ebbing away - whatever was in the tablets was clearly effective. Little surprise that Miss Granger kept such supplies in stock, if they worked this quickly. 

The cat had clearly decided that discretion was the better part of co-existing with this odd incarnation that looked and smelt like his mistress but behaved like something completely different - whilst Snape had been in the bathroom, the furball had moved from the bed to the chair. When Snape finally noticed, he almost smiled. One small victory, but things were suddenly so much easier. 

He followed the same routine as the previous night; bedclothes stripped back - the house-elves here in Gryffindor were as fond of precision bedmaking as those who serviced the dungeons - and the nightclothes pulled from under the pillow with a minimum of inspection. A quiet murmur doused the lights; the heavy curtains across the windows blocked out all light so that he worked rapidly and carefully, relying on a sense of touch - and minimal touch at that - to exchange his clothes and slide under the sheets. 

He stared into the unending darkness, feeling sleep tug at him. Thoughts churned through his head - the Potions lesson this afternoon, in particular, replayed over and over in his mind. He had indulged in some petty revenge, raising his hand and asking questions incessantly, wanting to make sure that Miss Granger understood exactly what her teachers had had to deal with over the years - she had shown surprisingly little sympathy; either she was getting closer to the role than he might had expected at this stage, or she was unimpressed by his actions. She had been competent - almost alarmingly so - for someone who had never had to teach before; his fears about her mollycoddling his classes seemed to be misplaced. At lunch he had heard one small Hufflepuff in floods of tears about "mean old Snape"s behaviour in class that morning. 

He was, reluctantly, impressed. She could be almost as unpleasant as he was. 

Sleep pulled more insistently at him, but he was unable to give in to it - something kept him awake, tugging at the back of his mind and fleeing all attempts to bring it to light. Snape twisted and turned in the bed as he sought either clarification or sleep, the sheets gathering around him until he growled - an odd sound, now - and sat up, pushing the sheets away. 

_This_ was why he never wore nightclothes; any attempt at sleep was inevitably restless and the clothes and sheets were caught up with friction, wound around each other. At least without clothes the sheets simply slid over his skin and didn't attempt to throttle him. 

Could he? 

Should he? 

It was dark, no light to breach privacy, and no-one would know; he needed the sleep, he rationalised. A small voice that he could have deemed his conscience had he believed he possessed one spoke up, reminding him that these were just excuses. 

Another growl, this time to himself, sending all thoughts into the darkness as he pulled the nightdress over his head. 

It was done. 

And the world hadn't ended. 

More particularly, McGonagall hadn't burst into the room, demanding to know why he was undressing her favourite student. 

Snape released a breath he hadn't been aware of holding and sank back on the bed, relieved now to feel cool sheets against his skin, while carefully ensuring that his hands were spread out to either side of him. 

He pulled the sheets up, then froze. Certain parts of his new anatomy were clearly reacting to the night chill in the room - good grief, how did Hermione manage to sleep with this sort of sensitivity!? The sheets felt as though they were scraping across his breasts, catching on the nipples ... Snape wondered whether the bed would fold in on itself, or the earth open up and swallow him, at the thought of Hermione's ... he didn't even notice he was referring to her by her first name in his mind now. 

He gritted his teeth and gingerly pulled the sheet up, holding it well away from his body, until it reached his chin and then let it drop onto him. He was still acutely aware of the material but, without movement, the sensation was more bearable. 

Much more bearable. 

Rather pleasant really. 

Snape almost howled with mingled frustration and ... arousal. At least, that's what he thought it was. An odd feeling, heavy in the pit of his stomach and seemingly wired directly to his nipples; if this was the effect of merely the sheet, he began to understand why it was that women protested if men were in too much of a hurry to pay proper attention and respect before heading lower. When he returned to his own body he would make sure ... 

Snape laughed alound, the sound ringing and grating. When was he going to get that opportunity? Which of his harem would he pick first? Another laugh. The only beneficiary of this information would be his imagination, as it had always been. 

He turned over abruptly, trying to distance himself from self-pity and the unwanted but welcome sensations. He succeeded in the first but not the second, suddenly finding the sensations tripled as he rubbed against the bed in turning. 

His mouth went dry, and he turned back over immediately. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, counting off potion ingredients and recipes. When he realised his hand had strayed to what were now his own breasts, tentatively touching and rubbing, he gave up. He needed to sleep after all, and this was as good a form of exercise to induce sleep as any other. Or so he had often rationalised to himself before. 

The prototype conscience - perhaps it was Hermione's, left behind in her mind? - howled with indignation at the idea of violating a student. 

But she would never know. 

And he really did need to sleep. 

The voice in his mind subsided, smothered by the sensations that shot through him as he moved his other hand down to his stomach and then further ... he would pay for this in the morning. Nothing that felt this good came without a price of some sort; and he was already paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate. 

His fingers eased through the soft curls, damp with the warmth in the room and ... oh please. Pleasepleaseplease ... Snape gave up all attempts to rationalise or justify what he was doing and simply surrendered to it. His fingers, still slightly awkward and unpractised, slid between the folds he encountered and dipped between them. His body certainly knew what he was doing, even if this was rather new to him; his legs spread and he drew his left knee up to allow his right hand more access. 

Snape was, at least peripherally, aware that he was in charge of what was going on - but, somewhere along the line, he had handed over control to his subconscious; or Hermione's subsconscious. Whosever it was, it was doing a fine job now. 

He felt himself slide one finger into the deeper opening he found between his swollen folds, and felt it gliding through the wet heat to be clenched by muscles he felt tighten inside himself. The heaviness in his stomach moved lower, tightening still. This felt ... entirely new. Nothing like masturbation usually did for him; the quick, hard stroking and equally quick release in the shower was nothing like this almost luxurious heightening of senses as awareness pooled in the dampness. 

He had long suppressed his tendency towards hedonism; after tonight, he wondered whether he would ever be able to suppress it again. Or whether he would even let Hermione have her body back. 

Two fingers thrust now, slipping and pushing into and against his heat, as Snape grimaced. He was pathetic, almost willing to condemn a child to the hell of his life so that he could simply maintain access to this rapture. He was not, though, noble enough to refuse the rapture now. 

Then all thought was lost in a haze of red and the concentration of all awareness in the tightening spiral around his fingers; the heaviness grewer impossibly denser and then exploded. 

Snape saw stars - literally. Small shots of light arced across the muted colours of his closed eyes, spiralling and fading, like mercury spilt on a slate floor. 

A long shuddering sigh broke the silence; Snape didn't think he'd cried out - certainly the cat didn't seem to have moved. Then again, all of Gryffindor House could have traipsed through here in the last few minutes and he wouldn't have noticed. There was no-one around to hear, even if he had made any noise. The perks of the Head Girl's room. He was starting to appreciate them even more. 

Snape tentatively brought his fingers up his body, releasing the hand still clenched on his breast, and became aware of his scent - hot and musky, signalling without doubt what he had been doing. He would need to shower in the morning ... 


	9. Leave it to Physiology to Ruin Your Day

**The Fire and the Rose Part 9**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Friday had finally reached an end, as implausible as that outcome had seemed to Hermione at the beginning of the day. Closing the door behind her, still clutching her homework, she shut her eyes and leant back, resting her head against the dark wood. What, she asked herself sincerely, exactly had she done to deserve being placed in this situation. Because, she fervently assured any deities that might be listening, if she ever found out, she would spend her life atoning. She really promised. Anything if she could just have her body and her life back. 

A combination of fear and adrenaline and simple _need to cope_ had carried her through the previous two days. Now, she needed to escape and process the sequence of events. Opening her eyes again, she murmured _Lumos_ and was no more than three steps into the rooms before it hit her that she was, once again, alone in Professor Snape's private rooms. 

No, she corrected herself, _her_ private rooms. Her living space for, potentially, the next six months. The previous evening, and indeed that very morning, she had moved through them as quickly as possible, trying to take as little notice as she could without actually falling over things. She had simply registered the briefest of first impressions, hoping against hope that she wouldn't actually need to acquire more familiarity than that. 

_So much for that idea._

She felt the same sense of Snape's presence in the room as she had the night before; even if the man himself - or at least his spirit - was absent. She could almost hear that acid voice telling her not to touch or break anything. Unconsciously, she squared her shoulders in determination. 

_If I'm supposed to be living here I need to know what's here._

She began to take a more careful look around. 

It was, indeed, as large as her first impression had suggested. At one end, two deep leather armchairs, and a matching sofa long enough for her to lay full length on - even as Snape - surrounded the large hearth. Instead of an open fire it had a closed stove -_an ingenious way of discouraging unwanted guests_, she thought distractedly. One long wall was broken with two floor-to-ceiling windows. She pushed aside the incongruity of a dungeon possessing picture windows for the moment. Between the windows was a long, low dresser. In one corner was an enormous table, with several dining chairs pushed around it at random. The rest of the walls were lined with glass fronted cases packed with books and scrolls. Even a cursory glance made Hermione feel like a child let loose in a sweet shop. Texts on alchemy, potions and healing crowded with those on philosophy, psychology, physiology, physics, chemistry, herbalism.... It seemed endless. Scattered in between were Muggle classics she recognised - Dickens, Shakespeare - together with biographies, histories, anthropology.... It seemed that she was not the only one who would read anything that was written down. 

Tearing herself away from the shelves reluctantly, she continued her exploration. What walls were still visible were painted in a pale shade, which seemed to hold a surprisingly soft trace of apricot. In fact the whole room held an unexpected warmth, she realised; the combination of polished chestnut furniture, deep pile rugs in shades of dark copper and bronze, and dark brown leather giving it an undeniably masculine, but strangely appealing, atmosphere. 

But the revelation was not so much the comfort, but the disorganisation. Everything about Snape's professional attitude, from the order of his stores to the exactitude of his methods, suggested an almost pathological neatness. Only his personal appearance might belie that impression, and Hermione was beginning, even at this early stage, to appreciate the lengths he went to in order to discourage speculation on that topic. 

No, his living space was - if not actually untidy, definitely _lived in_, in a good way. Most, if not all of the available surfaces had books or papers of some sort on them. And that included all but one on the dining chairs. There was a pile of books by the hearth - another good reason for a stove, rather than an open fire, she thought - evidently things he had been leafing through. Some of the cabinets were not properly shut, suggesting that the books in them were used, rather than kept there for effect or decoration. And, in the rare spots that were as yet untouched by Creeping Library Blight, there were odd... well, _ornaments_ would be the word, she supposed, although that did conjure up nasty images of china shepherdesses and decorative plates. As with the books, the objects were an intriguing mixture; glass phials of varying sizes, odd copper instruments, brass devices that looked not unlike old Muggle scientific apparatus.... 

In amazement it dawned on her that his rooms reminded her, in a bizarre way, of Dumbledore's office. 

_How extraordinary._

To distract herself from the thought, she wandered over to one of the windows. They were framed by thick curtains, currently still pulled open; no doubt where he had left them two days ago. Idly she gazed outwards. The sun had set some time ago and the distant hills were now faintly outlined in the silver wash of the risen moon. Looking down she could just make out the sweep of the grounds sloping away, and realised that it was that very descent of land that enabled this side of the castle to house the dungeons and yet still let in the light. The combination of interior brightness and exterior darkness turned the uncurtained window into a mirror. The tall, sour figure of Professor Snape stood in front of her. With a sudden snatch she released the curtains and the glass was covered. The reflection was temporarily banished. 

Seeking anything that would stop her lapsing into introspection, Hermione found a rare empty space to put the indecipherable squiggles that apparently constituted her Transfiguration class notes. She thought that she should clear somewhere to keep her things where they wouldn't get mixed up with Snape's work, but after a moment's consideration, decided that she had better leave that question for when she next spoke to him. She didn't like to think of his reaction if she managed to lose something important. 

_One more thing to have to sort out_. Taking over someone else's life was a hell of a lot more complicated that it looked. 

Finally, unable to resist temptation any further, she settled herself by the closest bookcase and carefully began to inspect the contents. 

If you could judge someone by the contents of their bookshelves, she thought that a Muggle psychiatrist would have a meltdown analysing Snape. There didn't seem to be anything that the man didn't read. Actually, she corrected herself, it didn't appear that he read romantic fiction. Which was probably a good thing. Her nerves weren't really up to the vision of Snape curling up with _Gone With The Wind_, or a nice Barbara Cartland. 

She saw that he had a couple of professional looking books on the rules and tactics of Quidditch but noted, with a rather snide satisfaction, that he didn't seem to collect any of the gushing fan-centered eulogies on the Chudley Cannons or any of the other teams. 

Leaving the Romance and Sports shaped gaps aside, his library was impressively comprehensive. She opened the glass door and began to run her fingers lightly along the spines of some of the texts. For Hermione books were almost sensual things. She valued them as objects in the their own right, not just for the information they contained. Muggle archaeology sat next to Wizarding history. Chinese Alchemy sat next to Immunology and Virology. Stendhal sat next to Camus. Sartre balanced on top of Schroedinger and Kierkegaard. 

The stove was warm, the chairs were comfortable - on the whole, she reflected, if she had to spend six months here, it could be a lot worse. 

Some little while later she realised that the cumulative effect of stress and exhaustion meant that she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Reluctantly she dragged herself away from the treasure trove of his books and off to bed. The bedroom was actually as welcoming as the other room. Warm rugs on the floor, another stove in the hearth, a wide, comfortable bed and simple, wooden furniture. Utiliarian, but not stark - more like _unfussy_. 

An unexpected side to the unapproachable sarcastic man. Only the bathroom seemed to display the austerity that might have been predicted of him. 

Too tired to pursue the implications of this, she stripped down to her underwear again, without really thinking about it and collapsed under the covers, this time falling into deep and mercifully dreamless sleep. 

The next morning, Hermione gradually came to blurry wakefulness in that drugged haze that comes with the knowledge that it is Saturday morning and nothing immediately needs to be done. Lazily, she turned over in bed, and encountered an uncomfortable hardness under the front of her thigh. 

Drat, she thought sleepily, I must have fallen asleep with a book in the bed again. Absently she stuck her hand down to pull out the offending text. Her hand closed on something warm, and a sharp and extremely pleasurable tingling shot through to the pit of her stomach. 

Instantly, Hermione was more awake than she could ever remember being in her life to date; sitting bolt upright and staring appalled at her hand as a thing completely unconnected from her body. 

_Gods. Oh Gods. Oh dear Gods._

The hand wasn't hers. The... that... it... _certainly_ wasn't hers.... 

She tried desperately to calm her breathing, as the world reasserted itself, and her brain caught up with her. Recollection set in and she closed her eyes and groaned aloud. This hadn't happened the previous morning. Then again she hadn't exactly slept the night before either. 

This _really_ wasn't fair. 

The pressure in her groin was making its presence felt again, which meant that she would have to find some way of dealing with it. Forcing herself to face the problem, she thought. Only two solutions presented themselves. A cold shower, or... _direct action_. Her mind skittered away from solution number two like a magnetic pole meeting its identical twin. 

_Cold shower it is, then. Oh joy._

She gingerly got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. The tight stiffness at the top of her legs made it a little uncomfortable to walk. Not to mention the... ambiguous... sensation of cloth against highly sensitive skin. Gritting her teeth, she activated the shower, running it until the water was as cool as she could decently bear. Right, she told herself firmly, this was it. Time for the shower. You have to wash. Even Snape doesn't actually smell. Which meant.... 

Her fingers very cautiously moved to the elastic of the shorts and eased them down over her hips. She concentrated on the wall of the shower like someone standing on one foot and trying to keep their balance. Letting go, the garment hit the floor, and, taking a deep breath, she stepped under the spray. She gasped as it hit her body. She turned so that the water ran down the front of her torso, and concentrated on thinking about not-sexy things - Divination class, Trevor the Toad, Argus Filch.... Eventually the unfamiliar feeling in her groin receded and she could breathe normally again. The immediate problem solved, her thoughts turned to cleanliness. A brief survey of the shower revealed absolutely nothing. It was not that she was expecting Gilderoy Lockhart's signature brand Gentle Exfoliating Bodywash for Wizards with Extract of Roman Camomile and Vetivert - but he must surely wash with _something_. She knew, from the razor incident, that there was nothing anywhere else in the bathroom. She looked again, a little desperately. There was austerity and then there was frank deprivation. 

In the corner of the shower, she finally spotted something. It was a block about four inches long and two inches wide and an inch and a half high. And it was green. She picked it up and smelt it suspiciously. To all appearances it looked like the all purpose household soap that her mother used to remove just about any kind of stain from any kind of material. 

_He washes himself with this? Including his hair? No wonder he looks like he does. Well, he'd better discover the shampoo in _my_ bathroom._

The part of her that would forever be an eighteen year old girl was profoundly appalled. 

Still, there didn't look like there was another option just at the moment. Reluctantly, she began to lather her chest, still outraged at his concept of personal grooming. She had run her hands over herself several times before it occurred to her that she was washing Snape. Discomfort warred with curiosity within her. Not that she'd ever speculated about Snape's physique before of course, but it seemed that she was stuck with it for the next little while. And seeing that this was her first chance to examine an adult male body up close and personal, as it were.... And she _was_ after all, a Gryffindor, and not one to back away from a challenge. She turned up the heat of the water and began to pay more attention to what she was doing. 

The body under her hands did not actually feel unpleasant, she decided. The chest felt muscular, with only a small amount of hair. The abdomen was flat and toned, despite the amount of food that she seemed compelled to eat. Obviously his metabolism would allow him to eat heartily without putting on weight. She was willing to bet that he didn't appreciate how lucky he was. Moving down, her hand began to encounter more wiry hair and she stopped abruptly, not quite ready to go that far. Skipping that section for the time being, she began to wash her legs. They were long and the thigh muscles were well defined. Below the knees his calves were equally well defined, and there was a light dusting of black hair on his shins, extending to just above his ankles. His feet were narrow and surprisingly elegant. 

She let the water sluice off her body, and washed her hair, with serious reservations about the effectiveness of the soap as a shampoo. 

Finishing she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Reaching for the large towel she dried herself off, feeling a little better, and looked around for a bathrobe. 

She sighed at its inevitable absence. She supposed she would get used to the lack of things that she regarded as essential items. Obviously Snape was completely unselfconscious about his nakedness. Not, she thought maliciously, that there was exactly anyone for him to be selfconscious for. Resigning herself to making do, she wrapped a small hand towel around her torso and moved to the toilet. The pressure in her lower body had now resolved into an issue that she did, in fact, recognise, and moreover knew how to deal with. Staring at the porcelain, she wondered about trying it standing up. 

_Hmmm. One step at a time, I think._

She sat down, discreetly holding the towel out of the way. Then she made her way to the sink. Washing her face had reminded her that she needed to shave again. 

It didn't take her quite as long this time, and the consequential injuries were less. No doubt she would get the hang of it after a while. She was just about to head for the bedroom to retrieve Snape's wand and heal herself, when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full length mirror. Her step hesitated. She really _did_ need to get used to the body. And she hadn't exactly been able to get a back view in the shower. 

She stopped and faced herself squarely in the glass. 

The face and hair were familiar, if a little damp and, in the case of the face, bleeding in a couple of places. He was pale. Very pale. But the body was as lean and defined as it had felt under her hands. Slowly she reached up a hand and ran her fingers across the edge of the pectoral muscles, noting the width of the shoulders, more apparent to her now than it had been in the shower. She flexed and extended her arms, watching the biceps contract and stretch. They were strong arms, with only a downy covering of hair. Slowly she turned them over, exposing the vulnerable skin of her inner forearms. And stark and ugly on her left arm, bereft now of the softening effect of soapy lather, was the outline of the Dark Mark, snake and skull obvious even when quiescent. Transfixed by the sight, her right hand moved impulsively towards it. Gently, so gently, she touched it. To her surprise the skin felt no different under her fingers; as soft and warm as the rest of him. She had been expecting it to feel... she didn't know. Maybe cold. Or hard. Or like scar tissue. But it was seamlessly part of him. She traced out the design. It had little more effect on her than a distasteful tattoo. Did it feel like that to him? Or was it more deeply embedded into his psyche than his flesh? 

Somehow, she couldn't quite see herself asking him the question. 

She lifted her hand back to her chest and ran it down and across her stomach, stopping at the top of the towel. She half turned so that she could see her back. It was a smooth light expanse of skin, which gently rose and fell and she flexed her shoulder blades, riding over the muscles - again not prominent, but unmistakeably present. The towel prevented her from seeing his buttocks. 

Not bad, she was astonished to find herself thinking. Not bad at all. 

"Professor, you are quite a surprise," she murmured absently. A moment later she registered that there had been no response. With sudden relief she realised that he must have a Muggle mirror; she wasn't currently up to dealing with backchat from a looking glass. 

Her hand hovered over the edge of the towel. She couldn't _keep_ shutting her eyes every time she went to the toilet or needed a shower. Apart from anything else she had a vague recollection from her parents' old textbooks on human physiology that there were certain hygiene considerations relating to the foreskin that needed to be addressed. She didn't entirely fancy any future that entailed explaining to Madam Pomfrey and Snape himself how she'd allowed him to become infected in a sensitive area. Unless, of course, he were circumcised. Which, of course, she wouldn't know until she looked. 

That was it. Considerations of health and safety justified her looking. Nothing to do with her slightly aroused curiosity. Definitely, definitely not. Definitely. 

She hooked her fingers under the edge of the towel and pulled it away from her body. 

His buttocks were as pale as the rest of his body, sculpted in taut, convex planes over his pelvic bones. She shifted her position nervously, watching the skin move over the angular structures. Her mouth went a little dry, and she was uncomfortably aware of a new tension in her groin. 

_Was she getting turned on by looking at Professor Snape? Or herself? It was distinctly not normal either way._

Very carefully she turned so that she was face on to the mirror. The hair at the top of her legs was not excessive, just enough to set off the pale organ. Hermione was not exactly an expert on male endowments, but it didn't look unpleasant to her, hanging down with the darker scrotal sac behind. She stretched one hand towards her penis, and touched it tentatively as if it might burn her. The skin beneath her fingers was velvet soft, and the featherlight brush sent a spark of pleasure into her groin. She touched herself again, more confidently and another shaft of sensation hit her lower body. The flesh beneath her hand began to twitch. She felt the pressure intensify, uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. 

She should stop this now, she knew. But it did feel good. And she had always wondered what it felt like for a man. And... and.... 

Her hand stroked itself gently along the soft flesh, exploring, aware as she did so that it was hardening. Looking down she could see the flesh darkening as the blood flow increased. She wrapped her hand around herself and began to rub up and down, awkwardly at first, and then with increasing confidence as the feelings within told her what was good, and what was better. The skin of her hand dragged on the skin of her cock, and in the absence of any other lubrication, she spat on her palm, using her own saliva to diminish the friction. 

Shutting her eyes, she let sensation guide her. Her awareness began to pool into a hot tight urge to thrust forward against herself and instinctively she ran her thumb over the tip, unable to stifle a grunt at the white hot pulse that knifed through her. Somewhere along the line her legs began to weaken and she ended on her knees, still stroking away, her other hand moving to cup her balls. As she massaged herself she felt fluid leaking from the tip of her. She smeared it around, hand now sliding even more easily over the hard member. She quickened the pace, moving hard and insistently now. 

This felt good. This felt very good. Really, really, extremely, _incredibly_ good. Oh yes. Yes. Yesyesyesyes. 

_GODS!_

A moment later Hermione realised that she was kneeling on the floor of Snape's bathroom, naked, flushed and panting, and subsiding from the quick, intense release. In front of her were splatters of a creamy substance. She touched it with a nervous finger. It was warm and slightly sticky. 

Well, that was different, she thought. And at least she now knew that he wasn't circumcised. 

She wondered if this counted as seducing a teacher. 


	10. Twist in my Sobriety

**The Fire and the Rose Part 10**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Snape stretched and stirred, waking slowly to a room full of dark red light; he blinked, wondering where he was - his rooms were never this dark and light together. 

The scratch of cotton on skin abruptly reminded him of where he was and who he was. 

And what he had done last night. 

He closed his eyes tightly, a childish rejection of the truth that he was going to have to live with for the next few months. Two days - just two days - since the potions accident. He felt as though he'd lived a thousand years in those forty-eight hours. 

Lying in bed, though, would solve absolutely nothing. He threw back the covers, unable to bear the sensation against bare skin any longer - it was no mystery now why Hermione preferred to wear nightclothes. He would do the same - no matter how much they twisted around him and woke him up - rather than deal with the arousing scratch of newly-washed crisp cotton. It was either that or persuade the house-elves not to wash the bed linen so frequently. Somehow, just somehow, Snape thought that such a request might not go unremarked upon. 

The cool air of morning made him shiver as he got out of the bed; he padded across to the window and opened the heavy curtains. This high above the grounds of Hogwarts there was little chance that anyone would be able to see him. He could, though, see himself quite clearly in the morning light that washed into the room, no longer filtered by the curtains. 

He had - steadfastly - avoiding looking at the body he inhabited. But, after last night's ... entertainment ... he rather felt that he had broken every last possible opportunity to retain some measure of Hermione's privacy. So he looked at his reflection at last. 

Slim - probably too slim, he thought critically, too many missed meals studying in the library - but with definite promise for the woman she was becoming. _He_ was becoming - and would become, if they couldn't find a way out of this. Snape turned away from the window and the unforgiving light, fleeing both the encroaching depression and his study of his body. The latter was making him uncomfortable - arousal was _not_ his usual reaction when looking at his own body. Come to that, it was not his usual reaction when he looked at Hermione either - or anyone else. He had trained that particular response from his psyche a long time ago. 

The shower - he needed to shower, to wash away any lingering suggestion of what he had done during the night, and to avoid incurring the wrath of Hermione if he went one more day without washing her hair. 

The bathroom was tolerably familiar by now, even if he still had little - if any - clue what half the bottles that decorated it were for. He searched carefully, inclined simply to grab the bar of soap that sat on the ledge of the basin, but well aware that there was bound to be some reason for the bottles. Hermione would probably be able to tell - and, right now, he was less than eager for an argument over something so trivial. 

And, if he were truthful with himself, this body was rather more entertaining than his own. Taking care of it might be more rewarding as well. 

_That_ train of thought was slapped away rapidly - the dark of night was one thing, easier to justify and dismiss. The light of day was something else, requiring acknowledgement of the rapture and the surrender. 

Snape stood in the middle of the bathroom looking around him, focussing on the task he had come in to accomplish and avoiding the reflection in the mirror. The bottles on the edge of the bath seemed the obviously place to find whatever it was that Hermione used. 

Five minutes later, Snape sat on the edge of the bath - appalled and fascinated. The sheer variety was startling; three different types of shampoo, something called conditioner - when he'd read the information on the bottle, he assumed it was necessary to tame the curls which rioted through his hair - and shower gel, the most practically named bottle that he'd found so far. Again, there were several varieties. He'd picked shampoo, conditioner and shower gel by scent - he was going to have to spend the day with the scent, so it seemed the best way to select them. 

Then - well, then he'd read the bottles more closely. In particular, the ingredients list. Idle curiosity, really, just to see what sort of ingredients the Muggles used. Curiosity had given way to appalled fascination - nothing natural in any of the bottles, even when he had translated the ridiculous names into their more commonplace equivalents. He could see what they were aiming to achieve but there were infinitely simpler - and less hazardous! - ways of doing the same thing, none of which involved any magic. Adding magic to the equation would make them more effective, but it was not essential. 

He _really_ needed to talk this through with Hermione - she might not object to using such things but he was not exactly enthusiastic about having to do so. This once, though, he was simply going to have to deal with it. He was immensely grateful to the manufacturers for the scents they had added - of course, if they hadn't used such appalling ingredients to start with, no scents would be necessary ... 

Snape lost himself in the scalding steam from Hogwarts' inexhaustible supply - even this far up in the towers the pressure was blissful, sloughing off sleep and thought in the mist that rose around him. 

Washing himself was interesting - rapid, harsh, strokes with a flannel to try to avoid the sensations of night. His hair took a surprisingly long time to shampoo - although the conditioner was interesting; it slicked down the hair to a manageable texture. 

Finally, pink from the heat, he stepped out of the bath searching for a towel - there were several on a stool nearby, and he grabbed the largest from the bottom of the pile, dislodging the others onto the floor where they soaked up the water that had pooled in various places where it had splashed as he showered. 

He wrapped the towel around himself, covered from the gaze of the misted mirror, and another around his hair - it was going to take some time to dry off the mass that twisted down his back now. 

What else did he need to do? 

Having spotted a toothbrush, he dared to glance in the mirror as he cleaned his teeth. The reflection he saw there made him flinch; it was hard enough knowing that his body was different. To see a different face altogether was harder still - although, he supposed, it would have been beyond peculiar to see his own face on Hermione's body. 

The mint toothpaste tasted very odd and, almost not wanting to know, he checked the ingredients list for that as well. 

He really was going to have to talk to Hermione. Had she learnt _nothing_ in potions classes? He was rather surprised that she didn't simply make up her own cleansing potions and pastes - she had certainly learnt the information needed to do so, all it would take was a little sideways thought to apply the knowledge which her examination results confirmed she had taken in during his class - and in Herbology classes. 

Finally dry - his skin, at least - Snape faced the next challenge of the day. Casual clothes. The safety of school uniform would not be enough today. He stood in front of the wardrobe now, still wrapped in towels, barefoot and stared balefully at the selection of clothes in there. 

Short skirts. No. Definitely not. He had seen Hermione wear them at weekend - if he forced himself to think about it, they had suited her. That did not matter at all, in the slightest. _He_ was not going to deal with skirts that length - he wasn't particularly enthralled about having to deal with them as part of school uniform but at least that exposed rather less - particularly when covered by school robes. 

Jeans it would have to be; a Muggle invention that wizards - particularly the younger wizards - had enthusiastically taken up. 

Jeans and a sweater; a handful of clean underwear from one of the drawers of her press. Underwear was a challenge - bras had to have been invented by a masochist; either that, or all women bar Hermione were double-jointed to be able to fasten them at the back, without being able to see what they were doing. 

Dressed, all that remained before he ventured out to find breakfast was his hair; and that was a task too far this morning. Snape really could not be bothered to deal with drying it - he would simply tie it back and let it dry on it's own. He'd seen a collection of bands on top of the press, surely all he would need was one of those. 

Indeed, all he did need was one. One band and a supply of rapidly-thinning patience. Tugging a brush through his hair had been an interesting - and painful - experience. Knots upon knots; the conditioner clearly did not do its job particularly well. He was unsure whether to admire Hermione for dealing with this every day, or question her intelligence for not having thought to use magic to create a more effective way of dealing with it. Until he was more experienced with her wand, though, he was going to have to do this the hard way as well. 

Finally - finally! - he was ready to head down to breakfast. He looked down at himself, trying to forsee Hermione's reaction. Showered, dressed, hair dealt with. Perhaps casual, but it was Saturday and he had no classes. Casual was permissible in students even if he did not permit it in himself. 

He murmured 'goodbye' to Crookshanks, vaguely wondering whether he was supposed to feed the cat or something - he had done nothing but ignore it for two days, and it seemed not to be bothered. Presumably it caught its own food or begged something from the kitchens. 

After breakfast he faced another round of pressure from Harry and Ron: 

"Come on, Hermione, you can't fossilise in here for ever! You'll turn into Binns - haunting the place when you're dead, unable to leave!" 

Harry turned out to have an unexpected flare for dramatic statements and rather more sense of humour than Snape would have credited him with. Ron was more predictable. 

"Come o-o-on, Hermione," he moaned. "You've got to come, you're being boring. The library won't fall apart without you." 

"I need to work, and I don't want to come," Snape insisted stubbornly. "Just because you don't feel the need to study doesn't mean that I'll go along with what you want. Go together, it's not like you'll be alone." 

Aiming for Hermione's tone of voice was becoming easier; the boys shrugged and sauntered off after Harry had asked whether there was anything she wanted them to get for her in Honeymeade. Snape had shook his head and turned to face Lavender and Parvati. 

Expecting the same urging from them, he had been surprised when they had simply nodded and brushed past to follow the boys. He watched them go, a little perplexed. The common-room had emptied of all students old enough to be elsewhere, and he finally took himself off to the library. Thankful for Hermione's clearance, he spent the rest of the morning prowling through the Restricted Section, researching the known variations on polyjuice. 

Lunch was a quiet meal, with so many away in Hogsmeade. Without the insulation of Harry and Ron, Snape noticed that no-one tried to make conversation - he wondered whether he should say something, but settled for staring at his lunch. 

By the time he headed down to the dungeons, he had a headache again - full force between the eyes and twice as painful as last night. 

His own voice bidding him to "come in" was all he needed to burst through the door and collapse into a chair. 

"What am I doing wrong?" he asked without preamble. "Something isn't working - Harry and Ron are the only ones who talk to me; no-one else seems to dare speak to me. If we're going to get through this without being exposed, you're going to have to coach me or someone is going to say something to the wrong person. What do you do to make conversation with the others in the common-room and at lunch?" 

Hermione looked levelly at him. 

"Nothing. Welcome to my life, Professor Snape." 


	11. Terms of Engagement

**The Fire and the Rose Part 11**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

"Welcome to my life, Professor Snape." 

The words came unbidden, piqued out of her by his unspoken assumption that there would be more to it than that. The uncomfortable awareness that she was preparing to defend a situation that she, herself, had often wished to be different, was pushed down to join the ever growing list of things that she didn't want to think about just now. 

Things like her new-found knowledge of Professor Snape's body, for instance, and its unexpected entertainment potential. Things like the morning that she had spent alternately trying to decipher his cryptic Transfiguration notes - abandoned when she realised that, even had she had her mind fully on the task, it would be impossible without a decoding charm - and leafing through one of his books, telling herself she was reading and not dreading the coming meeting. 

Things like trying to avoid the thought that he might have carried out a similar "investigation" of her body. Like telling herself that the idea was disgusting. And being appalled to realise that she not only wondered if he had done it, but whether or not he had liked it. 

She wondered if he would be able to tell what had happened in some way that she didn't know about. 

So, when he came rushing into the room to collapse in a chair in front of the fire, and immediately question her on her social life, she gratefully seized the opportunity to take the resulting spark of irritation, and dump enough panic on to it to turn it into fully-fledged bad temper. 

_Welcome to my life, indeed._

"No doubt you were expecting to spend your time sitting around with the girls, talking about clothes and make-up and boys. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Professor, but I imagine that _you_ know more about the boys in Gryffindor House than I do." 

She noted absently that that little speech could have been delivered by the genuine article. She was finding that hitting his tone was disconcertingly easy. Maybe she had been waiting all along for this chance to get in touch with her own personal inner Snape. 

That was as maybe, she told herself sternly. It was the _outer_ Snape that was the current problem. Some focus might be appropriate. 

Snape, himself, seemed slightly taken aback at her reply, although well on the way to a recovery. 

"Miss Granger," he said deliberately, with a faint undertone of rapidly failing patience, "I wish you would control your propensity to overreact. I can assure you that my desire to 'sit around with the girls', as you so eloquently put it, is extremely small. I simply do not desire for our situation to be revealed as a result of an error that could be easily avoided." 

She took a deep breath. He was right about her reaction; it was out of proportion, and more importantly, out of character. It was not impossible to use the words "Snape" and "overreaction" in the same sentence, she reflected, but you didn't get the chance very often. This was not one of those occasions. She took another breath. 

"You're right, Professor. I apologise." 

He didn't respond immediately, and she was aware of him studying her intently. Instantly, she was self-conscious again. She had been careful about dressing, recalling that she had never seen him in less than full robes, not even at the weekend. Not even in the summer. 

"What's the matter?" she asked, trying not to sound defensive again. "Is there something wrong with what I'm wearing?" 

She could have sworn that he started at that, but, if he did, he controlled it too quickly for her to be entirely certain. 

"No, your dress is satisfactory," he stated. "Although, I do not recall that I normally have the top buttons of my jacket undone." 

She was too busy fastening them to register that his response to the slip had been unexpectedly mild. 

"I'm sorry," she excused herself. "I don't really like things tight around my throat. And anyway, it's not as if anyone really knows what you wear in private. I mean, you don't really have guests...." She trailed off, as her brain caught up with what her mouth was saying. She really was going to have to watch that. 

"Thank you, Miss Granger," came the smooth reply. "I believe you have now adequately revenged yourself for my earlier careless remarks about your lack of meal time company. Shall we move on?" 

_Yes, let's do._

She ran a hand through her hair, trying not to obviously wince at the sticky residue left there by the soap. Which led her to her first careful look at 'her' appearance. The choice of clothes was acceptable, although he'd managed to select the only sweater that she really didn't like. The hair was clean, but still a little damp around the edges. Clearly, he'd managed to wash her hair, but not felt able to tackle drying it. 

"As you can see, I have identified the uses of some of the items in your bathroom," he noted, clearly aware of her scrutiny. She nodded. He'd made a reasonable attempt at her hair, although he still hadn't got as far as make up. Ah well, she thought resignedly, one step at a time. "However," he continued, "I do have to question your choice of preparations." 

She nearly choked audibly. 

_This? From the man who washes his hair in green household soap?_

"I beg your pardon?" she managed faintly. 

"The ingredients in the preparations that you use. You could make far more effective ones yourself. You should certainly possess that knowledge. And the skill." 

This time a strangled noise did emerge. 

_Excuse me, Professor Snape, but I thought that if you didn't mind I might pop by the dungeons one evening and whip up a batch of moisturiser. All right if I help myself to ingredients is it? I can't imagine why I never thought of that before._

"I... um... never really thought that you would be very enthusiastic about using the classroom to make cosmetics." She picked her words very carefully from a selection which included, amongst others, _would have had apoplexy at the mere suggestion_. On the other hand, if it made him take care of her body ... she shrugged. "But, if you want to, be my guest. Just so long as no one notices." 

He just nodded briefly at that. And the concept of Professor Snape making her cosmetics became yet another thought filed under To Deal With Later. 

"Well?" his voice broke into her musing. "If we've completely covered health and beauty, could we continue?" 

She pulled herself together. What next? A glance around the room brought her attention to the table, and thence to the question of work itself. 

"Well, there's my notes. I simply can't read them and I _have_ tried. And whilst we're on the subject - I know its a side issue, but can I clear some space to keep my things in here?" 

He simply raised an eyebrow. 

"You're obviously working on some things," she said defensively. "I didn't want to move anything if it was organised in a certain way." She shrugged again. "And some of it might have been private." 

He looked at her again, more consideringly this time. 

"A fair point, Miss Granger. I will clear some space for you. In the meantime, might I suggest that you make some tea, and then tell me what you think is the solution to the legibility of your notes." 

She blinked. The offer of tea, natural in her own rooms, had just not occurred to her here. Yet another thing to remember. She moved towards the stove wondering where the tea things were. 

"I see you've been looking at the books already." His voice made her jump again. She was about to excuse herself again, when he waved irritably at her. "Miss Granger, unpleasant as the thought no doubt is, you are going to have to treat these rooms as if they were yours. That means using the things in them, especially the books. The tea things you're looking for are in the dresser," he added. "If you will excuse me, I think that I shall also make some willowbark and valerian infusion. I fear this could be a long afternoon." 

It was a long afternoon, but in the end it was nowhere near as fraught as it could have been. Somewhere between warming the pot and pouring the dark liquid into mugs, Hermione decided that only way to get through this was to face the fact that she was going to be Snape for at least six months. They _might_ find a solution more quickly, but she had to assume that they wouldn't. Which put them both into the curious situation of intimacy without knowledge; a lot of personal facts, without any real understanding of the individual behind them. It was disconcerting, to say the least, but once you accepted that proposition as a given, the rest became simple logistics. 

That conclusion reached, she carried the tea over to where Snape was sitting, drinking his infusion. He cast a slightly wary eye over the contents of the mug and then put it down on the table beside him, waiting for her to begin. She marshalled her thoughts, trying to shake off the feeling that he was expecting some kind of class presentation. 

"I think that we can deal with the handwriting by using _Mea Scripta_ charms." 

And so they started. 

Snape actually required some convincing that the writing was an issue at all, until she pointed out that at least three of her teachers - of whom he was one - had a fondness for in-class tests. 

"Ron is one thing, but you can hardly hand in an essay to Professor McGonagall written like that. She'll know at once that its not my writing." 

Taking his silence, and slightly raised hand, as some kind of agreement, she pulled out her... _his_... wand and then paused, remembering the sluggish, alien feel of it. He was obviously waiting for her to do something, one eyebrow quirked. 

"Lapse of memory, Miss Granger?" he enquired. 

She glared without thinking. 

"If I might have my _own_ wand back...," she asked, with false sweetness. Filtered through his vocal cords, the effect was remarkable. A sort of silky insincerity, underpinned with bass notes of sneer. A classic Snape tone. So _that's_ how you do it, she thought triumphantly, fighting the urge to grin at him. 

Wordlessly, he handed her the wand. She enchanted a good supply of quills, so that they would reproduce her handwriting when used, and put them aside on the table. It occurred to her to wonder exactly what would happen if they were still in this position when the NEWTs came around, and all the anti-cheating charms were in place. The thought was sent off to join all the others in the To Deal With Later part of her mind. 

"Now you," she said. 

"Me? Miss Granger, I hardly think that you are going to need to reproduce my writing. I shall continue to mark papers and write reports." 

She wondered if he was being deliberately obtuse. 

"And what if I'm asked to write passes for people? Or class excusals? Or a note for one of the other teachers." 

With an air of sulk that Pavarti herself would have been proud of, he stood, picked up his wand and muttered the spell over another pile of quills on the table. Hermione picked up one and experimentally wrote something on a scrap of parchment. The words appeared in Snape's barely legible scrawl. It wouldn't fool the goblins at Gringotts by any stretch of the imagination, but it would get her through the next few months. She caught his look of disapproval again. 

"Satisfied?" he asked, rather mutinously. "I'm not completely incompetent with a wand, you know." 

Sulking Snape was considerably easier to deal with then sarcastic Snape, Hermione decided. She simply ignored him. 

"You'll need to do that to some chalk as well. I can't keep getting classes to copy out of textbooks." 

However, his mention of wands did lead rather neatly on to something else. 

"I think we need to sort out Transfiguration as well." 

His expression did not get significantly more co-operative. 

"Transfiguration is one of my best classes," she explained patiently. "Professor McGonagall is going to be the first to notice if something is wrong." 

He shrugged then, seeming to resign himself to the need to do this. She half expected him to say _whatever_, in that dismissive tone that was Lavender's favourite response at the moment. 

"Shall we try whatever you were doing in class last time?" she suggested. 

She handed him her wand and watched as he managed, on the third attempt, to turn an ebony and silver box into a hamster. He did as well as most of her class, she thought. But she knew, arrogant as it may be, that she would have succeeded first time. She absently prevented the hamster from chewing on the end of a parchment. 

"What happens when you turn it back?" she asked, trying to observe objectively, rather than focus on the fact that the man could ruin her Transfiguration marks. 

He performed the reverse transfiguration. She was left coralling a small black hamster with an intricate coat pattern, not unlike silver filigree. 

"I don't think that you've quite got the angle of the wand right," she said consideringly. "It needs to be more sharply raked. Then the arc of the movement is easier to control." 

The second time was better, and now she was convinced that it was something to do with his wand control, not his ability to focus on the desired result. She shook her head, as she caught the box, now scuttling towards the edge of the table on four little rodent feet, and put it on its lid. The feet waggled in the air, trying to find the floor. 

"No, it needs to be more like this...." Without thinking, she reached to cover his hand with hers, intending to demonstrate the action. She had just barely touched his skin, when he pulled sharply away. 

"Miss Granger, I understand the theory, I simply need to refresh my skills. And I would remind you that circumstances are forcing me to use a wand that is not my own." 

She hoped the flush wasn't too obvious. Swallowing, she forced herself back to the practicalities. Wands, for example. Well, she had managed some simple spells with his, but there was no doubt that casting was significantly more difficult. She thought. Maybe there was a way around this. They couldn't simply exchange wands. Hers was willow and unicorn tail hair, nine inches. His was ebony, maybe twelve inches and she had no idea what the core was. Longer, darker, heavier; it would be the first wrong thing that anyone noticed. However... 

"Professor, could I have my wand for a moment please?" She held them both, balancing, comparing. 

_There was no reason why this shouldn't work. It was barely a transformation; more a glamour, a false seeming._

She put her wand on the table, angled Snape's carefully, concentrated and cast. The feeling was sluggish again, as if she was fighting a great weight of inertia, but finally the spell was finished. On the table was a twelve inch, ebony wand, to all appearances identical to the one she was holding. Exchanging it for the one on the table, she hefted it experimentally. It _felt_ right. It _felt_ like hers. She picked up the box with its still waving feet. One deft movement later, and it was foot free. Relief flooded her. She cast at the other ebony wand. This was much easier. Moments later, an nine inch, willow wand was laying there. She picked it up and handed it to Snape. 

"Your wand, Professor." She hoped that she didn't sound as smug as she felt. 

"An ingenious solution," he conceded, in a rather grudging tone. She was inclined to take that as gushing praise under the circumstances. "Now that has been resolved, shall we move on to other things?" 

She looked at the ebony box pointedly. He sighed and raised the wand, and she thought she detected an element of reluctance in the gesture. Again, he angled it in a way that didn't seem quite right to her. 

This time, the box remained stubbornly a box. Granted, it was a _furry_ box, but it was, unmistakably, still a box. 

_So much for the 'not my wand' theory, Professor._

It also went some way to explaining his prejudice against _foolish wand waving_. 

The knowledge that it was _her_ classes that would be affected, and a certain recognition that that it had to be very difficult for him to be forced to reveal his lack of skill in this way, prevented from her feeling as much pleasure in his discomfiture as she might otherwise have done. 

She also couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound offensive or patronising. 

"Well, you'll just have to practice," was her eventual, curt response, and then, with an attempt to change the subject that she hoped wasn't too obvious, "so, what do I need to know about next week's lessons?" 

He returned to his seat and steepled his fingers. As he began to take her through his teaching schedule, she thought that his posture relaxed fractionally and his voice became easier. By the time he had finished she had a clear idea, not only of the subject matter to be covered, but the strengths and weaknesses of each group, the students to watch carefully - other than Neville Longbottom - the pairings to avoid and the obvious dangers. 

"The concealed dangers will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis," was his final remark. 

He was, she decided, an acute observer of others, even if he did tend to use those observations to terrorise rather than support. In return, she gave him as full a description of Gryffindor dynamics as she could manage; both in-house and external. 

"The most important thing to remember is that we hate Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle and they hate us back. Ron and Harry will never pass up an opportunity to get at them. You have to at least _try_ to stop them. Don't worry if you don't manage to. I hardly ever do." 

As far as the Project to find The Cure - as she had begun to think of it - was concerned, it was clear that Snape was taking charge of it. He informed her that whilst he conducted tests on the remains of Neville's Accident, she could take the list of the ingredients on the shelf - of course they would be meticulously catalogued, she thought - and start to organise them into impossible, unlikely and potential causes. When she protested at the sheer number of combinations he glared, and told her to approach it methodically. 

"Begin with the assumption that the simplest answer is the most likely. So, look at individual ingredients. Then combinations of two, then three and so on." 

"Is that a valid assumption, though?" she couldn't help asking. 

He just shrugged. 

"Some parameters for the task have to be assumed. Do you have a better suggestion?" 

She didn't. He moved over to the bookshelves and walked along them, removing volumes here and there and placing them in a pile. When he had accumulated about a dozen, he turned to her. 

"There may be some information in these texts that can help us. I suggest that we both look through them." 

They continued talking. 

"Is that it?" she asked eventually, feeling a little shell shocked after discussions that seemed to cover everything from Slytherin House politics to Weasley/Potter avoidance tactics. 

"Probably not," he admitted. "However, I would have thought that it would be a little depressing if one's entire life could be explained in the course of an afternoon." The touch of dry humour surprised her, and then reminded her that in all their conversations, one subject had been conspicuously absent 

Voldemort. 

Now, there was a thought that belonged in the Don't Want To Think About _Ever_ category. However, the fact remained that her chances of being summoned were now significantly higher. She wondered whether she should say anything now, or wait for Snape to bring the subject up. In the end, she decided that his instruction to 'find me immediately' still held good, and he would no doubt tell her if there was anything else she needed to know. Part of her was aware that this was merely staving off the inevitable, but another part of her told her firmly that she had quite enough to deal with in what she _knew_ was about about to happen, without adding what she _feared_ to it as well. 

"Actually, there is one last thing, Miss Granger." His voice broke into her thoughts as if he had read her mind. Involuntarily, she tensed. "Do you play chess with Mr Weasley very frequently?" 

She almost sagged with relief. 

"A couple of times a week, I suppose. I usually lose." 

"Then, Miss Granger, I don't suppose you'd care for a game of chess." 


	12. Hysteria

**The Fire and the Rose Part 12**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Chess games came and went; the week wore on, and Snape remembered, in vivid detail, just why it was he had been so glad to pass his Transfiguration NEWT and finally forget everything he had ever learnt about turning unlikely objects into even more unlikely objects. 

His evenings were spent in his old rooms - now Hermione's - practising the same techniques until his wrists were sore; it would take rather more time before the muscles became accustomed to the movements again. Flicking a wand, twisting his wrist, ignoring the shooting pains that sparked through his hand and along his arm - he was trying to re-cram six years of classes into his mind in as many evenings, and it was not a particularly easy task. 

It was made less easy by Hermione watching him - not continuously, she had her own work to get on with, but he was still conscious of her sitting there like some malevolent bat as she worked and looked up from time to time to watch his failures. She said little, but needed to say nothing. He had not been aware of just how expressive his face was when it came to show unease. 

Classes were spent scribbling, slowly adjusting to the sight of Hermione's writing coming from his quill, or keeping his head down and hoping against hope not to be asked to demonstrate something in Transfiguration classes. McGonagall was being surprisingly co-operative in this, and Snape wondered whether Albus had found something which he could tell her - without actually telling her - that ensured she overlooked him. Whatever it was, he was not going to complain about the reprieve. 

He had settled largely into a routine and so, he presumed, had Hermione; certainly no-one was asking questions. A cycle of sleeping, washing, eating and working. Any leisure time was taken up with Transfiguration practice and the continuing experiments to determine what, precisely, Neville had managed to achieve with one careless action. 

Neville. 

Snape was now certain that someone, somewhere, was ensuring that he paid for previous transgressions. Potions classes were, in many ways, more stressful than even Transfigurations - watching both Hermione and Neville was exhausting. Hermione was unnaturally competent at his job - not that he would ever tell her. Nonetheless, he didn't think he would ever relax as she taught, mentally couching her through the lesson just as he had done the previous evening as they worked together in the laboratory. 

He knew he would never relax around Neville. He had always known the boy was a liability - and had know that Hermione helped him considerably, more so than he had let on - but somehow the actual extent of that liability had passed him by. How the boy could excel at Herbology and be so entirely useless at Potions which, after all, primarily used the results of his work in Herbology, was a mystery. Albeit not one which Snape was in any hurry to unravel. 

Classes, though, were finally over for the week. It was Friday evening, and all he had to endure was dinner in the Hall between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. One day he would look up whichever Muggle story it was that those names came from and work out whether it was the insult that it sounded like for him to call Harry and Ron that. 

Right now, Snape sat curled in the armchair in his rooms with the cat sitting on the back of the chair behind his head. He was tired - ridiculously tired, even allowing for the fact that it had been a long week. He vaguely wanted something to eat, but was certain that dinner wouldn't provide it - chocolate perhaps. Not an unreasonable response to low energy, after all, and maybe there would be something with chocolate for dessert; he still had the rest of the evening to get through, after all, and at the current rate of progress he would be asleep on the workbench in the laboratory before he had even begun the next round of experiments. 

He just needed to get through the evening - tomorrow was Saturday, he could sleep as long as he wanted. Snape reminded himself of this, forcefully, and shoved down memories of last Friday night's personal entertainment. He hadn't repeated the experiment, although he was well aware that it would be only a matter of time before he did. The evenings this week had been long and tiring, and he had generally fallen asleep to dreams of morphing turtles and teapots without time to think about anything else. He had vaguely promised himself more experimentation this weekend but, he rather thought, it would not be tonight. The thought flickered through his mind that, perhaps, he shouldn't be promising himself the opportunity to play with someone else's body - but then again, this was his body for the next six months. And it wasn't as though he was planning to get a tattoo, or some other Muggle permanent marking. He was doing nothing that Hermione wouldn't do, of that he was certain. He wasn't quite sure why he was certain, except perhaps the responses of the body he was inhabiting, which had seemed to expect what he had done. Or maybe that was wishful thinking. 

In any case, he was certain Hermione had done the same thing with his body - and she didn't appear to be a hypocrite, to criticise what he had done whilst doing the same herself. She had to have woken at least once this week with an erection; he doubted whether his body would behave any better for her than it did for him, and he equally doubted that she would resist the opportunity, when faced with it, to experiment. 

His thoughts were interrupted as the call for dinner chimed through the room, enchanted to reach every part of the castle, and Snape uncurled himself unwillingly from the chair. He stretched, somehow uncomfortable; he must have been sitting awkwardly, he thought. The cat leapt down from the back of the chair, turned around twice like a dog, and settled into the warmth he had left behind. 

The hall was as noisy as ever as Snape settled into his seat next to Harry and across from Ron; there were no announcements tonight - there rarely were any on a Friday evening - and the food appeared in the middle of the table with some speed. 

Snape looked at the platters and grimaced; he'd lost any appetite in coming down the stairs, it seemed. All he really wanted to do was go back upstairs and curl up to sleep. Still, it would cause far more comment than he was prepared to have to deal with if he did leave now, and so he waited for the plates to circle round to him. For once, he was glad that Hermione was vegetarian as he passed on the pile of steaks; he took small spoonfuls of vegetables and mashed potato and spent a few minutes staring at his plate, redistributing them as he waited for the meal to pass. 

Glancing up at High Table he saw Hermione methodically working her way through dinner - the angle of the tables meant he saw little but her face, and she was staring at the table as she ate, apparently deep in thought about something. Well, that was a characteristic enough pose for both of them. 

A sharp tug at his sleeve brought Snape's attention back to his table. 

"Not hungry, Hermione?" asked Harry; the boy had cleared his plate at least once whilst Snape had toyed with his food. Snape shook his head. 

"No, not really. Too tired." 

"Serves you right for taking on that extra credit project then, doesn't it?" remarked Ron from across the table, speaking around a mouthful of half-chewed meat and potato. Snape grimaced and stared down at the table. 

"Ron, learn some manners," retorted Harry. "I swear, if your mother could see you now ..." he laughed, mimicking Ginny; she was sitting some way down the table, so he wasn't in danger of her retaliation. 

The implied threat worked, although the grin on Ron's face as he finished chewing and swallowed suggested that he might not have taken it as seriously as he appeared to. As soon as he finished though, he returned his attention to Snape. 

"Hermione, why do you put up with the greasy git? It's not like you haven't got enough grades to outclass everyone else in the place! You're mad, you are, volunteering to go and spent more time with the old bat in the dungeons. What's he doing to you to tire you out, anyway?" 

For some reason, Ron's questions were the last straw. Snape was horrified to feel his eyes fill with tears; never mind that it was an automatic reaction of a body not his own to feelings that it wasn't used to dealing with - this was still not something he wanted to have to deal with here and now. He wasn't even particularly bothered by the Weasley boy's comments; they weren't news to him, and were even a validation of the work he had done to be thought of in that way. 

He ducked his head and tried to move, to get up and away from the table before anyone noticed the tears; Harry clamped a hand on his arm and held him in place. 

"Hermione, what's wrong ...," he paused when he saw Snape's face. "Ah. Right, it's that time of the month again isn't it? Honestly, Hermione, why do you let it surprise you like this? Can't you get some chocolate from Madam Pomfrey in time next month?" 

Snape froze, unwilling to allow his mind to reach the obvious conclusion. He was also rather unwilling to process the information that Harry apparently knew quite so much about ... no, he wasn't going to think about it. He. Was. Not. Going. To. Think. About. It. 

Snape swallowed hard, forcing back the tears and feeling his eyes growing hot as he did so. 

"I'm fine," he said, staring down at the table again before Harry could call him on it. He could feel Harry stare at him but, a moment later, the Boy Who Lived started a conversation with Ron who had, unsurprisingly, been oblivious to the whole thing. 

Snape concentrated on breathing, blocking out all other thoughts as he did so. He wanted to look up to the High Table, to glare at Hermione for not having warned him about this - although, a small part of his mind protested, he should have worked out for himself that this would happen sooner or later. It might have been more worrying if he hadn't ... oh no, _that_ possibility would have been ... thankfully, he rather thought Hermione was more sensible than to allow that to happen. 

This was a nightmare. No more, no less, than undiluted terror. The tiredness had vanished as his mind tried to assault him with thoughts and random comments. How would he deal with it? How ... no. He wasn't going to think about it. 

An elbow nudged his and a plate of chocolate pudding appeared in front of him; at least one thing was going right this evening. He turned and nodded his thanks to Harry before starting to eat slowly. 

Snape had finished about half of the plateful when he became aware that someone was watching him; he turned surreptitiously and looked around. Hermione was watching him from High Table with a scowl on her face; Snape assumed she was getting concerned for her waistline again. Well, this time she could take her concern and ... he scowled back at her, letting all his feelings at this particular turn of events show, and had the satisfaction of seeing her apparently surprised. 

He had, though, had enough chocolate for now and pushed his plate away. 

Dinner was over. At last. Snape blended into the crowd of scurrying students and was swept out of the Hall; moving away from the phalanx of Gryffindors heading for the tower he fled down the stairs towards the dungeons. 

The darkness swallowed him up and hid him until he reached his old rooms; the door yielded to his passwords and he sipped inside. A fire was already lit in the grate, and Hermione was half-hidden in one of the armchairs apparently waiting for him. 

Her elbows were propped on the arms, hands steepled together just below her chin. 

"What was that expression about?" she asked quietly. "What happened at dinner - you looked fine when you came in." 

"Let's just say I had an unwelcome realisation," muttered Snape before raising his voice. "What is your preferred potion, Miss Granger?" he asked. 

"My preferred ...? In what context?" asked Hermione. 

"Think about it," he retorted acidly. "What's the date today?" Hermione still didn't appear any more enlightened so he tried again. "A month ago, Miss Granger. What happened to you a month ago?" 

Hermione was silent for a moment or so longer, then her mouth twitched and Snape would have sworn that she was trying not to laugh. 

"It wasn't exactly a month ago, Professor. Cycles aren't always as predictable as that - and no," she added, presumably having seen the expression he hadn't been able to hide, "it's usually longer than a month. About every five weeks or so, it's not entirely predictable. To answer your question, though, I don't use any of the potions. You'll find some -" 

He interrupted her. "What do you mean, you don't use any of the potions?" 

"Exactly that, Professor. I don't use them and neither will you, thank you. There are too many Muggle studies which indicate that there are some potentially serious long-term effects from suppressing the menstrual cycle other than through pregnancy. I'd prefer not to be dealing with ovarian cancer some years from now and, since I plan to regain use of that body within a few months, it will be me who has to deal with the outcome." 

Snape glared at her. "It would only be for a few months," he snapped. "Hardly enough time to make any difference." 

"Or it might make all the difference. I'm not taking the risk, so you will not use any of the menstrual potions. As I was saying," she added, pointedly, "you'll find some Tampax in a box in my bathroom. There's a leaflet inside which tells you what to do with them." The last was said in a rush after a short hesitation; Snape got the impression she had backed out of explaining how these Tampax worked. 

"If you've got any problems, let me know. I find a hot-water bottle usually helps with the stomach ache, if you get one. It's not always the same." 

Snape stared now at the fire; there were many things about his life that were not remotely fair. This, though, seemed to dwarf most of the rest - perhaps he would gain some perspective about it eventually but, right now, he wanted to howl with rage. 

"We'll scrap this evening." He heard Hermione speak and vaguely understood that she was dismissing him. "You'll deal with it better soon, it's a bit disconcerting at first. I remember when ..." Her voice trailed off - either she had suddenly realised who she was speaking to, or she had changed her mind about sharing that particular part of her history with him. "Anyway, do you want to meet up again tomorrow?" Snape said nothing, still staring at the fire, trying to block out what was happening. 

From the chair, Hermione sighed. "Professor, go upstairs and have a bath - as hot as you can stand it. Then go to sleep. We'll talk about this tomorrow, I know you're not up to dealing with anything else this evening. Go!" 

She had barked the last command and Snape found himself obeying almost without thought. He was suddenly very tired again, and it seemed easier to do as he was told. He wasn't aware that Hermione watched him with a worried expression as he left the rooms without a word. 

His room seemed once more a haven, warm and comfortable. The fire had been restocked by the house-elves and the cat was still curled on the chair - he took no notice of Snape's near-catatonic re-appearance in the room but continued to sleep determinedly. 

A bath. She had suggested a bath. Snape felt himself slowly return to the present, taking the problem he had been faced with and finally dealing with it. There was little point in blocking it out; it certainly wouldn't go away for lack of thought. Damn her for not wanting to use potions, though. Those potions had been used for centuries in the wizarding world without a problem, who was she to decide that they weren't appropriate? But then, she was Muggle - and whilst that didn't automatically make her irrational, she might perhaps be justified in wondering whether her physiology was the same as that of a multi-generational witch. Snape riffled through his memory, trying to recall any studies that had been done on the implications of long term medical potions use by Muggleborn witches and wizards; he couldn't remember any. There again, few studies were done on the efficacy of potions anyway; the assumption was that if the potion didn't cause an immediate problem, it would not cause any long-term problems. 

Perhaps that would be a suitable area to research when ... Snape forced his mind away from academics and back to the immediate issue at hand, reinforcing the focus as he went into the bathroom. 

The water was billowing steam from the taps, mixing a vanilla scent into the rising bath as he turned his attention to the cabinet. The vanilla was comforting, although he wasn't sure why he associated the scent with pleasure - presumably some long-ago treat that he no longer recalled. 

From the cabinet he pulled the box of Tampax. He had thought it some kind of cotton wool when he glanced at it earlier but, clearly, it was something rather more specialised. 

The bathwater shut off automatically once the bath was full, and Snape absently stripped himself of clothing as he looked at the box; it was not at all clear what he was supposed to do with the contents, although he had an unpleasant feeling that he knew what was coming. The blood on his underwear confirmed Harry's diagnosis - a thought he really didn't want to consider - as he pulled a slip of paper from the box. The contents were a series of paper-wrapped tubes, apparently. The unpleasant feeling intensified, and Snape slid into the bath, holding the paper up away from the water. 

The warmth of the bath was soothing, and Snape found himself relaxing for the first time that evening; the drowsiness returned full force as he was surrounded in hot water. Then he picked up the paper, and the drowsiness fled. 

She couldn't possibly mean that he had to ... yes, apparently she did. He stared at the instructions, half fascinated and half appalled. Rationality demanded that he acknowledge that, really, it was little different to what he had done last week - but that had been for entertainment; this was anything but entertaining. 

Snape read the instructions twice; if he had to do this, at least he would do it correctly. Then he let his head drop back against the edge of the bath and groaned softly to himself. Why him? Why? 

Eventually he could no longer hide in the bath; his skin was badly wrinkled as it was and the knowledge of what he was going to have to do had rather taken away any particular pleasure in the bath itself. He dried himself off then took a deep breath and picked up the box again. 

It was, in the end, surprisingly straightforward. As with many things, the idea was more unpleasant than the reality. Once he had reminded himself - several times - that he had done more or less the same thing with his fingers, he almost convinced himself that it was absurd to be bothered about it. He had torn open the small package and eyed the white contraption with mild distaste before noting that it was, in fact, about the same size as his finger - not his current fingers, admittedly. Then, whilst his mind was preoccupied with trying to block out the thought of his usual fingers being involved in the same entertainment that he had explored with his current fingers, he had closed his eyes and dealt with the problem by touch - obviously the best way to do it. 

He couldn't, precisely, feel anything inside him although he was somehow aware of the you-know-what - tampon, he reminded himself. He needed to stop dissembling and call it by name, otherwise it would gain more power over him. At that point, the stress of the evening broke and Snape found himself almost choking with laughter at the idea of comparing a tampon and Voldemort; it was late and he was clearly tired. But he was never again going to be able to take the Dark Lord quite as seriously as he perhaps ought to. 


	13. Afternoon Delights

**The Fire and the Rose Part 13**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Time passed, astonishing as that concept was. 

She had completed two full weeks as Snape, and she was beginning to settle into an uneasy routine. Overall, classes had gone well, or at least there had been no more major incidents. The seventh-year classes with Snape and Neville in were the most nerve-racking, but even Snape had seemed to content himself with simply watching her like a hawk, rather than interrupting every few minutes to make "suggestions". Staff meetings passed in a combination of tea and monosyllables, interspersed with the occasional sarcastic remark. No one questioned, no one commented; even Dumbledore did little more than throw a few encouraging smiles in her direction. 

_Was that because she was more like Snape than she thought? Or was it because_ Snape_ was more of a persona than an actual person? And no one ever saw further than the persona._

She looked out of the window wondering if her introspection was due to the body she was in or the weather she was watching. It was a Saturday morning, it was the middle of October and it was Scotland. Therefore, it followed logically that it was raining. Not a pleasant autumnal drizzle, but a sheeting downpour that cascaded down the windows, flooded the gutters and overwhelmed the gargoyles. Puddles collected in the uneven paving slabs of the castle walkways, soaking the shoes and robes of the unwary, and the rest of the grounds were little better than grass covered water. Worst of all, the afternoon's Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match had had to be cancelled. Madam Hooch had reluctantly made the announcement after it was clear that the players would be hard pressed to see the Quaffle through the water, let alone the Snitch. 

Hermione didn't need Snape to spell out the meaning of this; other than the few hardy souls who were prepared to brave the storm, and splash their way into Hogsmeade, the castle would be full of cooped up, bored teenagers, denied a legitimate outlet for their traditional house rivalries. Compensation would be sought in the corridors, by way of glaring, taunting and surreptitious hexing. 

_So much for any ideas of homework, or further research on The Cure._

She had watched Snape fairly carefully over the last week, but he seemed to be back to normal after his first encounter with one of the unique aspects of feminine physiology. Even making allowances for the fact that she knew how her own hormones reacted, it was disconcerting to see him so uncharacteristically lethargic and compliant. When she had first realised the problem, she had expected cold fury and scathing remarks, not mere token resistance. When he had then meekly followed her order to have a hot bath and go to bed, she had been more worried that she liked to admit. So, it had been something of a relief on the Monday when he had bitten her head off over an unthinkingly sympathetic remark about one of the fourth year Hufflepuffs who was struggling with the syllabus. 

Not that it wouldn't do him a great deal of good to experience first hand what women went through, she thought with a certain satisfaction. It would make a nice change from Harry's careful sympathy, as if it was some kind of chronic illness, or Ron's blissful lack of awareness. She snorted, imagining Snape's face when he realised what the Muggle alternative to potions actually involved. He had been conspicuously silent on the matter so she assumed that he had found the Tampax and worked out how to use it. 

Thinking about it made her look instinctively at her hands - _his_ hands. Large, strong capable hands. But she had used them enough over the last fortnight to be aware of how deft they could be when dealing with the finer aspects of the art of potions making. How sensitive to the texture and detail of the ingredients. How responsive to the ebb and flow of the liquids so precisely under his control. She wondered if they could also.... 

No. 

She didn't wonder anything of the sort. 

She wondered, instead, whether or not Harry and Ron would try and go to Hogsmeade that afternoon via the tunnel that came up under Honeydukes. She had distinctly mixed feelings about the idea. On the one hand, there would be the inevitable consequence that Snape would come into possession of Classified Information - namely the exact location and access details of a particularly useful hidden exit. On the other hand, it would get them both out of the castle for the afternoon, and therefore avoiding inevitable trouble with the Slytherins; she knew her two best friends too well to expect anything else. 

The clock chimed eleven and she sighed. Where would Snape be on a day like this? Making sure that he was directly behind any Gryffindors that were up to mischief, of course. And all she really wanted to do was curl up by the fire with a book and read. Scowling at her half-reflection in the window, she pulled her robes around her. Time to get on with it. She would just avoid the corridor where the Honeydukes tunnel started, and hope that Harry and Ron had had the sense to go out. 

She almost got away with it. 

A couple of hours of prowling, lurking and stalking were followed by lunch. No wonder he ate so much, she thought inconsequentially, as she sliced into a piece of chicken at the High Table at lunch. She must have walked about three miles already. She had no idea he got quite so much exercise. Then came the afternoon, with more prowling and restraining of boisterous children. The fact that she dearly wished to be doing something else put her in a faintly resentful mood which made her feel less guilty about deducting house points from her schoolmates than she otherwise might have done. 

Just as she was beginning to hope that the day would ultimately be uneventful, the sound of raised voices came filtering out of one of the less used corridors. _Familiar_ raised voices. Cursing under her breath, she detoured towards the noise. She arrived at the source of it in enough time to hear a familiar Scottish accent. 

"_Enough!_ Now what exactly has been going on here? Mr Malfoy? Mr Potter?" 

Hermione's heart sank. Harry _and_ Draco Malfoy _and_ Professor McGonagall. She didn't know which of the three she least wanted to deal with. Without stopping to analyse, she pulled the Snape persona around her like an invisibility cloak. 

"An excellent question. And one to which I should like an answer as well," she chimed in smoothly, although it was completely obvious. Draco's pale face was covered in boils, whilst Harry was trying to look dignified with his legs fastened together by the Leg-Locker curse. 

At her appearance Harry looked horrified, Draco looked smug and McGonagall's lips pursed in a thin line. 

"Good afternoon, Professor Snape. How fortuitous that you should be passing as well." 

"Indeed," she returned, infusing her voice with sneer. 

She looked quickly around. Malfoy's inevitable sidekicks were lurking off to one side, wands out. Ron was hovering in the background just behind Harry. Of Snape there was no sign. 

"And where is the inestimable Miss Granger?" she asked. "Shouldn't she be here to complete the set?" 

"She's in the library, working on _your_ extra-credit project," said Harry with a hint of insolence. 

"Yeah," added Ron. "When would she have _time_ to get into trouble?" 

She didn't know whether to be glad that she didn't have to deal with Snape as well, or annoyed that he hadn't made more effort to keep Harry and Ron under control. Not for the first time she wished that the boys could keep their mouths shut in these sorts of circumstances. She was about to respond to Harry but McGonagall got there first. 

"That will do, Mr Potter." She waved her wand and muttered _Finite Incantatem_ under her breath. Harry's legs began to function independently again. Draco glared sideways from between erupting pustules. 

"Duelling in the corridors is _strictly_ forbidden," she continued icily. "I wouldn't have thought that I needed to remind _Prefects_ of that fact." 

There was silence and Hermione wondered if she should add anything. She glared at the little group of friends and enemies, and the visible shifting suggested that a look was enough. There was a ragged, sub-vocal chorus of "No, Professor McGonagall"s. She was forcibly reminded of sheepdogs which could hold sheep in an open pen by the sheer fact of their presence. Snape clearly operated on much the same premise. 

"Professor Snape." McGonagall was addressing her now. "As Mr Potter is in my house, I shall deal with him for this, as I trust that you will deal with Mr Malfoy." 

There was an edge to her voice that suggested that she expected nothing of the sort. The Gryffindor part of Hermione was instantly affronted at the implication that Draco would not be punished properly. And there was a tiny, tiny part of her that was equally irritated at the idea that she would shirk her duty as a Head of House. 

_Head of House?_ She realised with a jolt that she was beginning to respond as the Head of Slytherin. _GODS_. 

"I assure you, Professor McGonagall, Mr Malfoy will be dealt with, just as you intend to deal with Mr Potter." 

Irritation had given more of an edge to her voice than she intended and McGonagall's face darkened. She nodded once briefly, and then swept off, gesturing to Harry and Ron to follow her. Which just left Hermione facing three rather smug Slytherins, one with a face like pepperoni pizza. She wondered how Snape dealt with his house when they were alone. Somehow, she rather doubted that he was the fatherly type. They stared back at her, obviously waiting for her to say something. 

"Well," she said sharply. "What are you staring for. Mr Crabbe, Mr Goyle, kindly take Mr Malfoy to Madam Pomfrey to have those excrescences removed from his face. After that, Mr Malfoy, you will come to see me in my office. _Immediately_ after that," she added for good measure. 

"Yes, Professor," they said together, and headed off. 

Which gave her maybe three quarters of an hour to get back to her office and decide what sort of punishment was appropriately Slytherin. For a moment she was tempted to head for the library to find Snape and ask his advice, but decided it was too dangerous. There were too many people about who could see her or hear her. One question in the wrong place and they were both in trouble. No, she was on her own for this one. 

Back in her office, pacing and staring at the cold hearth, she reviewed her options. She considered avoiding the issue altogether and simply sending Draco to the Headmaster. Unfortunately, Professor McGonagall's decision to deal with the matter at Head of House level - not to mention her own acquiescence - rather prevented that. Of all the Slytherins, Draco Malfoy was the one that she least wished to have to deal with like this. Not that she had any qualms about punishing him; indeed not. Left to her own devices she would cheerfully expel him for walking on the cracks in the flagstones. The problem was simple. Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater. Draco Malfoy was Snape's apparently favoured pupil. Draco would not only be one of the first to notice anything amiss, but also the first to report back to his father, and hence to Voldemort. Which meant that Draco Malfoy currently posed a serious threat to both of their personal safeties. She wished again that she had some way of getting Snape's advice. She was treading a fine line by anybody's standards. 

She pinched the bridge of her nose in thought. It had to be detention and loss of house points. The house points were not the issue; Harry and Ron had had sufficient taken away from them by Snape for her to have an idea of the upper end of the sentencing range, and then to scale down accordingly. But what about detention? With her would be too obvious. Snape would be unlikely to send Draco to serve detention with Hagrid. Filch then? Maybe. What was it that Snape had said about supporting him...? She began to turn the idea over in her mind, and finally came up with a solution that she rather liked. Just as she was beginning to expect Draco back from the Infirmary there was a pop from the fireplace and a note landed on the floor. She picked it up and unfolded it. 

_Severus, _

I would be grateful if you could be good enough to meet with me in my office to discuss this afternoon's incident. Four o'clock would be convenient for me. 

Minerva McGonagall. 

She fought the urge to groan aloud. Just for once she did not want to meet with her Head of House. She wondered if McGonagall wanted to discuss Harry and Draco, or their own rather acid exchange. Before she could speculate any further there was a knock at the door, which resurrected the more immediate problem. She folded the note up again and tried to push the thought to the back of her mind. It occurred to her that the back of her mind was getting distinctly crowded. 

"Come in," she called. 

Draco Malfoy entered _sans_ loyal retainers. Also _sans_ facial blemishes. 

_Here we go._

"Ah, Mr Malfoy, do come in. I see that your trip to Madam Pomfrey was successful." Slight sneer, slight hint of sarcasm, shading in more charm. A slightly more overt version of his behaviour to Malfoy in class. The Slytherin boy began to smile in a faintly knowing way. It was not attractive. She moved back, wanting to put the desk between them, and not just for the sake of her authority. 

"About your conduct this afternoon." 

"Yes, Professor Snape. I would like to apologise for that." Distinct lack of sincerity in his voice. 

She swallowed. This was make or break. 

"Mr Malfoy, please do not think that I do not sympathise with your perfectly understandable desire to hex Mr Potter and Mr Weasley off the face of the Earth. However." She paused deliberately. "Engaging in clumsy scuffles in corridors is not a way to bring credit to this House. It simply results in loss of points for Slytherin, and walking through the school with your face covered in boils hardly suggests that you were the victor." Draco was looking less smug. Hermione was warming to this. "I will not tolerate crude behaviour which draws unwelcome attention to yourself and which is barely more subtle than a fist fight. Do I make myself clear?" 

"Yes, Professor," the boy said, sounding distinctly chastened. But not surprised or resentful. More thoughtful. Gods, she hoped she hadn't made him worse. 

"Now," she continued, "you will understand that twenty points will be deducted from Slytherin for your actions, and you will serve detention." Draco nodded. She stood. "I have no intention of supervising that detention myself. Come with me." 

She moved out from behind the desk and swept towards the door, without looking behind. Footsteps told her that Draco was following her. In silence they left the office and headed for Filch's domain. The unsavoury caretaker opened the door at the first knock. 

"What is it?" he snarled, and then did a double take at seeing her and Draco standing there. "Oh it's you, Professor Snape and young Mr Malfoy," he said in considerably more civil tones. "What can I do for you?" 

Hermione felt a little nauseous at what she was about to do. 

"Mr Malfoy had been awarded detention for duelling in the corridors with the Potter boy," she said as dismissively as she could. 

"Oh dearie me," murmured Filch, with wholly unconvincing concern. "How awful." 

"Indeed," she said repressively. "He will serve his detention with you. I trust that you will find some appropriate activity for him." She laid a faint stress on the word _appropriate_. 

Filch's eyes lit up, and his face took on an unwholesome air of complicity. 

"Oh yes, Professor Snape, I'm sure I can find something _appropriate_ for the lad to do." 

She couldn't bring herself to say anything. She simply nodded curtly and stalked off, leaving Draco and Flich behind, and feeling unclean. So that just left Professor McGonagall. 

At exactly ten minutes past four she knocked on the door to the office of the Head of Gryffindor House. After considerable thought she had decided that Snape would resent the rather peremptory summons; not enough to ignore it completely, but enough to turn up late, just to make the point. Think Snape, she told herself again. 

From Minerva McGonagall's displeased look and lack of comment, she must have been near to the mark. She seated herself without being invited, and received another glare and a stony silence. She wondered if she had done anything wrong; although Snape had told her that he and McGonagall were not on particularly friendly terms. 

She toyed with the idea of simply saying "Well?" and then decided on the fractionally more conciliatory "You wanted to discuss something with me?" 

"I did indeed," replied the Scotswoman. She picked up a mug from her desk and sipped it. Whatever was in it, she was clearly not going to offer any to Snape. "The situation with Malfoy and young Harry Potter." 

Hermione shrugged, trying to convey an air of unconcern. 

"I have spoken to him about the... incident. Twenty points have been deducted from Slytherin and he will serve detention with Argus Filch. If you have done something similar to Potter, I would have thought that that closes the matter." 

McGonagall sighed. 

"Until the next time. And detention with Filch is hardly going to be a chore for Malfoy." The tone of her voice suggested that she had not forgotten the remarks made following the Mrs Norris episode. "This has to stop, Severus." 

Hermione looked up at the ceiling, absently noting the cherubs painted there. Silently she asked one - any - of them for inspiration. 

"Detentions with Filch, Minerva?" she asked, feigning innocence. "Surely you aren't suggesting that Hogwarts should be deprived of that highly useful source of student discipline and surveillance?" 

The woman looked even more annoyed, if that were possible. 

"I do wish you wouldn't be flippant about these things," she said impatiently. "I realise that you believe in survival of the fittest, water finding its own level and all that, but _I_ have no desire to see a student maimed or killed in the name of _establishing the pecking order_." 

That seemed a bit extreme, even to Hermione, and she said so. 

"Is it?" queried the other teacher. "You know as well as I do who Draco Malfoy's father is. Can you tell me he's not getting encouragement at home?" 

McGonangall's tone was serious and Hermione was at a loss as to how to judge Snape's response. 

"What exactly do you suggest, Minerva?" she said carefully. "It wasn't my idea to pair Slytherin with Gryffindor for every combined lesson." She devoutly hoped that that was the case. It didn't _seem_ like a very Snape-ish idea to her. 

To her suprise McGonagall sighed regretfully. 

"Nor mine. I always suspected that Albus' idea that the boys might learn to be friends was admirable in theory but doomed to failure in practice." 

_Absolutely._

Hermione felt uncomfortably out of her depth. The only thing that sounded within her experience was calling the parents in for a meeting. Except that Lucius Malfoy would undoubtedly support Draco. And so would the Dursleys if what Harry had to say about them was any indication. 

"I'll keep an eye on Malfoy," she offered, conscious that it sounded very weak. It seemed to satisfy McGonagall. 

"And I'll keep an eye on Harry. I suppose that's the best that can be done." She fixed Hermione with a piercing glare. "I know you don't like the boy, Severus, but even _you_ must see the need to keep him alive." 

Hermione was struck with an odd defensiveness on Snape's behalf. He had, after all, tried to save Harry's life at least once. 

"I'm perfectly aware of the need, thank you Minerva," she replied surprised at how acid she sounded. "Just because I don't worship the ground that Potter walks on doesn't mean that I actively wish him harm." 

McGonagall looked a little surprised at the vehemence of the response. Oops, she thought. That sounded too much like me. 

"Calm down," she said irritably, "there's no need to be quite so unpleasant about it. All I ask is that you encourage some discretion in your house that's all." 

"Gladly, Minerva," she replied with a sense of irony. After all, hadn't she counselled discretion in Draco just an hour or so earlier? Mind you, even she had to admit that neither Harry nor Ron were ones to back away from a fight.... "As long as I can count on you to encourage restraint in yours." 

Minerva McGonagall glared again. 

"You certainly may," she said curtly, giving the clear impression that she was currently exercising that very restraint and not without difficulty. Hermione decided it was time to get out before Gryffindor/Slytherin relations soured even more. She stood smoothly, now fully accustomed to the longer legs and greater height. 

"If there's nothing more...?" She let the question hang. A brusque hand was waved in her direction. Hermione took that as a dismissal. Not entirely certain how Snape would phrase this sort of departure, she settled for a simple nod, and left without a word. 

Only the insistent demands of her stomach, and the conviction that her absence would only lead to another acrimonious exchange, got her through dinner. Snape, she noted, was studiously not looking at the top table. Draco Malfoy was looking smug again. Ron, was shooting foul looks in his direction, and also in hers whenever he thought that she wouldn't notice. Gratefully escaping back to the dungeons, she collapsed ungracefully into a chair and waited for Snape to arrive. 

He was as punctual as ever, knocking and then letting himself in. He stood for a moment, appraising her. 

_Oh Gods, now what?_

She returned his look levelly, too worn to bother about politeness. To her astonishment, his lips twitched in a slight smile. 

"I gather that there was an _incident_ this afternoon between our houses." 

"How...?" she began, and then sighed. "Never mind. I can guess." 

He had obviously had the whole action replay, with commentary, from Radio Weasley. 

"Indeed," he confirmed. "I am now fully aware of the fundamental injustices of the way discipline is meted out within this school, with particular reference to house partiality. Out of curiosity, _did_ Mr Malfoy get off scot-free as Mr Weasley seems to think?" Although his tone was mocking she thought she detected a faint undercurrent of concern. 

Biting back any retort she might have made, she simply explained the circumstances and what she had done. He nodded slowly as she outlined the reprimand and the _punishment_ that she had imposed. 

"You're learning, Miss Granger," was all he said when she had finished. Not exactly praise, but she could sense that some of the tension had left his body. "Shall we get on?" he added, clearly treating the matter as closed, much to Hermione's relief. 

An hour and a half later they were both working in silence in the deserted potions classroom. Hermione had completed her homework, and left it on the side of the desk for Snape to take back to the Head Girl's room. Across the room she was aware that he had apparently finished marking and was now adding some substance to a cauldron; no doubt part of their joint quest to disentangle their lives. She picked up her own contribution to the cause and ran her eye over the analysis she was compiling of the shelf inventory. Concentrating, she absently ran her hand through her hair and checking, as she always did, at the feeling of stickiness. I miss my own hair, she thought idly as she returned to her attempt at the impossible. 

"Remind me again," she said to the general air, after another half an hour had passed, "why we can't just take Polyjuice for the next six months." 

"You astonish me, Miss Granger," came the reply. She jumped, having almost forgotten his silent presence. "This from the woman who tells me that she won't use a menstruation potion due to the possibility of long term side effects." He obviously hadn't forgiven her that yet. "Do you really want to take a potion once every hour for the next six months, when we have no idea what variation of it caused the effect in the first place. Unless, of course, my life is so much fun that you would risk remaining that way permanently." 

"No," she said, resignedly, "I suppose not." 

It was an ambiguous answer. He didn't ask for clarification. They carried on working. 

By the end of the evening Hermione had completed some more of the analysis and Snape had learnt little more about the mysterious potion itself. Despite their lack of progress, however, she found herself feeling considerably more relaxed than she had been earlier. A voice intruded into her thoughts. 

"Miss Granger?" He sounded irritable. "If you could manage to extend your attention span beyond that of a goldfish for a few moments..." 

That was it, she realised. This was the only time and place that she could still be _Miss Granger_. Could still be herself. Snape's scathing remark suddenly seemed almost comforting in its familiarity. It was a surreal idea. And considering certainly what she had been up to with his body, the formality between them was simply bizarre 

She had to smile. It seemed to cut off whatever it was he was going to say to her. 

"Professor. It occurs to me that as you are currently using everything else that I possess, you could actually call me Hermione." 


	14. Yogurt and Cherry Tree Bark

**The Fire and the Rose Part 14**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

It was almost the end of October; from the window of his room, Snape could see the forests roll away shaded red to green with the deciduous borders of the grounds giving way to the pines of the Forbidden Forest and the Highlands beyond. Already the promise of snow lay white on the caps of the mountains on the far horizon; the weather had become bitingly cold and he now understood the reason for the plethora of thick tights in Hermione's press and the collection of sweaters tucked under the rest of her clothes in the tallboy. 

Hermione. He had been practising using her name; it had not, after all, been an unreasonable request. To be so used to a name and then to never hear it spoken would be disturbing. He well knew it; when had anyone other than the Headmaster called him Severus? Snape shook his head and drew away from the window where he had sat, watching the scenery. Winter pulled on his melancholia, and giving into it would a luxury he could not afford this year. 

A knock sounded loudly in the silence of the room and Snape spun round, wondering who was pestering him now; the boys generally waited for him to come downstairs before ambushing him. Hermione had apparently - the gods be thanked - ensured some time ago that they did not pile into her room at all hours without a specific invitation. 

Instead of calling the visitor in, he walked across to the door and opened it just enough to see who was disturbing him after lunch on a Saturday. He had thought he had made it clear as he came back from the Hall that he wasn't in the mood for company ... and he wasn't. He also had to go down to the dungeons at some point soon - he needed to complete one of the experiments that he was running to determine whatever it was that had created the bastard child of polyjuice which he and Hermione were stuck with now. Experience - a month of experience now, already, had taught him that it was best to make his intentions extremely clear if he was to avoid questions as to his whereabouts. Even so, he rarely got away without some protests from either Ron or one of the others, complaining that he was always working. Evoking his duties as Head Girl dealt with many of the comments - fortuantely the Head Boy was in Ravenclaw this year, or he would not have been able to convince his housemates that his duties were _quite_ so onerous. 

Head Girl duties were, though, onerous enough - not as bad as he made them out to be for the sake of peace and quiet but, still, quite unpleasant at times. For some reason, the teachers seemed to think that he - well, Hermione - would make a good mentor or confessor for some of the younger female students. He had always known, in the abstract and rarely thought about, that the Head Girl acted as counsellor when it was felt that she would be more appropriate than a teacher. He had never had occasion to send a Slytherin to the Head Girl - unless she was Slytherin herself, when it hardly counted - and had not reaslised how often the others _did_ send students. One student in particular was ... interesting. A third year, and a Slytherin - one who hid herself away so that he had barely noticed over the last couple of years and, even now, still had difficulty remembering her name - was the most recent person to be added to his roster. She had come voluntarily, which was intriguing, but he had not yet extracted from her the reason why - it was another mystery to add to his workload. 

Fortunately, it wasn't her at the door. Unfortunately, it was the Gryffindor Barbies - a term he had heard Hermione use, with a certain degree of distaste, on occasion. He wasn't entirely certain what the insult was, but insult it clearly was and that was enough. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil; followers of Trelawney. That alone was more than enough to damn them in his eyes but they would insist on compounding the sin with their behaviour and attitude. Somewhere over the summer, according to Hermione, they had determined that _this_ would be the year that Hermione acheived her full potential - only their concept of potential had more to do with attracting the opposite sex and rather less to do with developing the mind. 

"Lavender, Parvati. What can I do for you?" He didn't open the door any further, hoping to discourage them. They grinned, though, clearly not put off by his manner. 

"Hermione," said Lavender breathlessly, "we've got to ask you -" 

"- what you've been doing to your hair! And your face!" finished Parvati, equally breathlessly. 

Snape let his face stay blank, but a tendril of fear curling through his stomach as he tensed. Had they noticed him doing something out of character for Hermione ..? 

"What do you mean?" he asked, wondering what on earth they were talking about. He tried to remember, but couldn't recall seeing anything unusual in the mirror this morning - and Hermione had not said anything when she had passed him in the Hall at lunchtime. If there had been something out of place, she would surely have said something. 

"It looks so good!" squeaked Parvati, "You must have changed your shampoo or skincare or something! Is it some new Muggle thing you found over the holidays? Can you tell us what it is? We need to know!" 

Snape was fairly certain he had never heard so many exclamation marks in a single burst of words; Lavender chimed in to add to the total. 

"Oh yes! Please! With the Halloween Ball coming up we want to really look good - and your hair is so much smoother, it looks so so good!" 

"The Halloween Ball? You mean the Feast, don't you?" Snape hoped to distract them by spinning the exchange off at a tangent. 

"No, no," said Lavender. "Didn't you hear?" 

Snape restrained the urge to point out acidly that, if he had heard, he would hardly be asking about it now ... instead, he just shook his head. 

"The Headmaster announced it at the end of lunch - you must have left by then - they must have been talking about something at the teacher's table because he suddenly stood up and said that, for a change, the Feast this year would include dancing, like the Yule Ball!" 

Snape almost groaned. Another of Dumbledore's bright ideas. 

"Anyway," the diversion had clearly not distracted Parvati, "what are you using on your hair - let us see!" 

Shaking his head, Snape stepped away from the door. He wasn't going to get away without more discussion on this issue, clearly. The two girls dashed in, grinning and - he could have sworn - giggling. They headed for the bathroom and he trailed behind them; they had obviously been in Hermione's room before, they seemed to know where they were going. 

The bathroom was a little crowded with the three of them, but the girls were not discouraged - they looked around expectantly. Snape supposed he ought to be grateful that they didn't simply paw through his things to find what they were looking for. He reached over to the ledge next to the bath and took a few bottles and passed them over. 

The bottles were plain glass, with a creamy liquid in them. The girls unstoppered them and sniffed, smiling at the scent that lifted from the liquid. 

"Oooh, gorgeous," pronounced Lavender. "What are they, where did you get them? It's not that Channel stuff you used to use." 

"Chanel," corrected Snape absently as he retrieved the bottles, "not Channel." 

"Whatever," said Parvati dismissively. "What are these?! And where do I get some?" 

Snape sighed. "I made them." 

The reaction was amusing, after all. The girls just looked at him, then looked at the bottles. 

"What do you mean?" came the chorus. 

"I made them," he shrugged. "It's no different to what we do in Potions, after all. I researched the recipes in the library," he hid a smile at the dismay in their eyes at the mention of research and the library. "It's a mixture of herbs and oils, mostly. The shampoo has some castile soap in it, with yogurt, cherry tree bark and some butterbeer - it makes my hair a bit more manageable. The moisturiser is based on jojoba with some wax and glycerin." He held in a shudder at the idea that he was talking about skincare, for crying out loud. It was almost too much. 

"A _lot_ more manageable, by the looks of it," said Lavender. "It's much less ... um ... bushy than it was." She had clearly failed to find a more charitable term to describe the state of Hermione's hair. 

"Thank you." 

"Can you make some for us?" Snape supposed he must have looked as incredulous as he felt at that request, because Parvati quickly followed it up with "we'd pay you, of course, or do something in return - but it looks like it's a lot better than the stuff we get in Hogsmeade." 

"What's in this one?" asked Lavender, picking up a small tub. He wasn't going to get rid of them as fast as he had hoped, clearly. 

"Cleanser," said Snape. Anticipating the next question, he added, "it's made of oatmeal, sunflower seeds, rosemary and milk." 

"I think I'd want to eat it," grinned Parvati. "Please, please, please can you make us some? Please?" 

Snape hestitated, wondering whether Hermione would agree to do it. On balance, he suspected that she probably would. 

"Yes, I'll make you some," he said, hoping he didn't sound quite as resigned as he thought he did - but, then again, perhaps Hermione would sound the same. The girls clearly didn't find it unusual. 

"The cleanser's a bit more difficult than the other two - I'll make you up the dry stuff, you need to mix it with milk each time you want to use it. Or water, if your skin's a bit oily." Parvati shot him a suspicious look, clearly wondering if that was a personal comment. He kept his face as bland as possible; the last thing he wanted now was to provoke an argument over who had what type of skin. Perhaps he should diffuse the situation ... "you can add cream if your skin's dry." That was better - now it all sounded as though it was clinical. 

The girls seemed settled in for the afternoon, apparently content to talk about skincare and cosmetics all day. Snape had other ideas - many other ideas, none of which involved conversations with the Barbies. He was just wondering how to negotiate them out of the room without being completely abrupt and rude - damn, he missed not having to care about people's reactions - when another knock came at the door. This time he was less inclined to question who it was and more inclined to be grateful that it offered an opportunity to steer the girls out of the bathroom and head them towards the door. 

That gratitude vanished rapidly when he realised that Harry and Ron had come up to remind him that it was time to go and see Hagrid - had she forgotten that it was the last Saturday in the month, and they always went to have tea with him then? 

Snape gritted his teeth. Tea with Hagrid. On balance, he thought he would rather talk about skincare. Just. 


	15. I Won't Dance Don't Ask Me

**The Fire and the Rose Part 15**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

"Oooh, yes," said Ermengarde Sprout enthusiastically, "I think that's a wonderful idea, Albus. The children need something to lift their spirits at this time of year." 

Dumbledore beamed, and gazed around the rest of the top table. 

"So, that's agreed then. Anyone else want to say anything? Severus?" 

Hermione struggled for words, but her brain was only suggesting reactions along the lines of despairing wails and she didn't think that that was wholly in character. 

"I'm surprised you need to ask, Albus," muttered Minerva McGonagall off to one side. "We all know how enthusiastically Severus supports anything that might be classed as fun." 

Seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents, Dumbledore stood up with a satisfied look on his face. "I may as well announce it now. No time like the present and all that." 

Hermione sat there transfixed, helpless before the inexorable steam roller that was the Headmaster In Possession Of A Good Idea, as Albus Dumbledore explained to the school - or those who were still present in the Great Hall - that this year's Halloween Feast would also be a Ball. 

There were cheers from all quarters, except hers. And, she was wiling to bet, Snape's. She looked over at the Gryffindor table but he seemed to have already left. Never mind, she was sure he would find a reason to escape the Common Room and head for the dungeons later in the day and then they could work out how they were going to deal with this latest blind curve on the road trip of their lives. Her expression obviously accurately reflected her feelings because as he left Professor Flitwick paused briefly to murmur in her ear. 

"Cheer up, Snape. It won't be that bad. Think about the chance you'll have to dance with our lovely Head Girl." 

There was a soft chuckle and he was gone before she could respond. 

Now, Hermione _liked_ Professor Flitwick. He was a gifted teacher, insightful and entertaining. She was talented at Charms, she knew that, and his lessons were challenging and stimulating. All in all she would have said that Filius Flitwick was her favourite member of staff, maybe tying with Minerva McGonagall. But right at that moment the glare that she directed at his retreating back was as genuinely baleful as anything that Snape could have produced. 

Back in the dungeons she paced irritably, waiting for Snape to get there. He _must_ have heard about the Ball by now, she thought. Why in the name of whatever wasn't he here? Apart from anything else there were experiments that needed his attention. 

She ran a hand through her hair and winced, wondering, not for the first time, if he would notice if she just took an executive decision to use shampoo and have done with it. Perhaps his perpetual bad moods were simply due to the world's longest bad hair day. She sighed. She was panicking at Dumbledore's announcement and she knew it. 

A _Ball_. Whatever had possessed the Headmaster? 

Hermione was not one of nature's dancers. In fact she hated dancing; a legacy of two terms of fighting her mother at the age of six, trying to persuade her that she was just not cut out to be a ballerina. She still bitterly recalled the slender, elegant children in their wispy scraps of pink and white lace, gliding round the draughty church hall. And herself, completely unable to get herself into the mindset of a snowflake, no matter how many cold, glittery, floaty, twinkly thoughts she summoned up. She shuddered, pulling the black robes around her. 

Dances at Hogwarts had been tolerable so far. Just. Largely due to the fact that the only people who really showed any interest in partnering her on the dance floor were Harry and Ron. And Viktor, of course. She scowled again at _that_ memory. The advantage of dancing with people - well, _men_, in the loosest possible sense - who were physically gifted was that they had some natural idea of how to move. Which meant that all you had to do, as the woman, was to follow and hope you didn't actually trip over anything. For the rest of it - on the rare occasions that Parvati, or Lavender, or Ginny had decided that she needed to _join in_ - it had just been making random jerking movements in time to the music, more or less. This, however, was going to be different. She was a man. Which meant she would have to lead. Which meant.... 

She swept round and paced the length of the room again, mentally cursing, trying to recall if she had ever actually seen Snape dance. Most of her previous Balls had been spent on, or avoiding, the dance floor. _Avoiding the dance floor_ had not included paying close attention to the movements of Snape, other than to ensure that she was in a place that he wasn't. She leafed through her memories; dancing with Viktor, Ron being a prat, the astonished looks of the girls, Ron being a prat again... no, there was nothing that had Snape in it at all. Maybe she could sneak away... patrol the grounds or something. Weren't people always complaining that he seemed to be lurking just when they wanted a bit of "privacy"? 

Damn it, she thought crossly, where the hell was he? 

And then it struck her; it was the last Saturday of the month which meant tea with Hagrid. She dismissed the thought summarily. It shouldn't be beyond his wit to get out of that. After all, this was more important that some social engagement. 

The words had barely formed themselves in her mind when she came to an abrupt halt and almost choked. _She was beginning to think like him_. Or more to the point, she was beginning to get used to not having to consult anyone else's preferences other than her own; to not having to act on other people's expectations of her. The realisation of freedom was slightly intoxicating. Her mouth twitched. Snape would, no doubt, be currently experiencing the full effect of two teenage boys and an over-enthusiastic half-giant, liberally laced with questionable tea and home baking of geological proportions. 

_Oh dear._

The thought cheered her up a bit and she began to idly look around the room, wondering if there was anything that could help her. A Dancing Charm, perhaps. A Terpsichorea Potion. Or even a book on the subject. Failing that an Anti-Ulcer Potion might be a good thing, she reflected, given the stress levels of her current predicament. 

Neither charm nor potion came to her rescue. Between her teaching duties, her own homework, coaching Snape in Transfiguration, The Cure and preparations for the newly instituted Halloween Ball, she had no time to do anything about even looking for a book much less doing any practice. Moodily, she sat at the top table, picking at her food, glaring at anyone who tried to make eye contact - which admittedly was few enough - and waiting for a decent chance to make an escape. Finally, the last of the food was cleared away, the students rose, and the tables moved back to clear an area for dancing. In the hubbub the musicians began to set up their instruments, and Hermione cast one more glance at the Gryffindor zone of the milling students, wishing that she only had to deal with the evening from her usual perspective rather than from an alien one. She wondered idly how Snape would manage, and whether or not she should stay around, just in case. 

In retrospect, she would realise that that was her fatal mistake. Had she simply slipped out of the Hall under cover of the reorganisation she would have been free, and no one would have been any the wiser. She should have left Snape to his fate; it wasn't as if he would have given her a second's thought if the situations had been reversed. As it was, her inner Hermione caused her to hesitate, and in that hesitation she was lost. 

A strong hand seized the top of her arm. 

"Not rushing off this time, Snape? Excellent. Then you can dance with me. You must owe me about thirty by now." Hermione's heart hit the floor as she turned to see Madam Hooch grinning at her, with only a very faint hint of malice in her yellow eyes. 

"I have no intention...," she began, desperately aiming for her most repressive tone, trying to back off, hoping she didn't sound as terrified as she felt. 

"You never do, Snape, that's the problem," was the hearty rejoinder. "Now come along. The band are ready to play." 

And with that she was propelled out onto the dance floor and into a situation which, whilst it wasn't her _worst_ nightmare, certainly made a creditable showing. 

The band began the first dance. Or, at least, she assumed it was the first dance from the fact that other people had moved onto the floor. She couldn't immediately tell the difference between the band playing a dance tune and the band tuning up. By the skin of her teeth she managed to remember the basic dance hold and began to move her feet, dredging up anything she had ever known about ballroom dancing, and then trying to reverse it. It was little enough. Madam Hooch was solid and muscular under her hands, as might be expected from a Quidditch teacher and player. Their occasional collisions were quite painful. 

Hooch didn't seem to object, though. 

"So, Snape," she said, at one point, disturbing Hermione's intense concentration and almost causing her to trip, "when are we next going to have the pleasure of you refereeing a match for us?" 

Hermione tried not to look horrified, and to come up with an answer that wasn't _ Never in this lifetime_. 

"I have neither the time nor the inclination," she got out through gritted teeth. 

All she got in response was a laugh. She had never disliked Madam Hooch, but her lack of skill with a broomstick meant that she had never developed a real rapport with her. Hermione doubted that it would ever happen after this particular experience. A turn, largely initiated by Hooch, brought the Gryffindor contingent within her sight. Harry was looking mischievous, Ron was gesturing enthusiastically in her general direction and Snape was looking mutinous about something, although she couldn't tell whether it was to do with what was being said, or the fact that she was currently dancing with the flying teacher. 

After eternity and then some had passed, the noise from the musicians finished and a smatter of polite applause broke out. 

This time I'm getting out, and never mind anyone's feelings, she thought viciously. Disengaging herself from Hooch, with a bare pass at courtesy, she headed for the exit. 

And straight into Albus Dumbledore. 

"Severus, how splendid to see you dancing." His eyes twinkled. 

_Oh Professor, just let me out of here._

"I have business elsewhere, Headmaster." _Please take the hint._

"Of course you do." He beamed benignly over his spectacles and Hermione felt the first beginings of relief sweep over her. And then felt them evaporate at his next words. "But before you go, I really do think that you should dance with the Head Girl." 

_No!_

Helplessly trailing in the wake of the Headmaster, she found herself face to face with Snape, who looked equally unenthusiastic at Dumbledore's idea. 

The first minutes of their dance were spent in frosty silence. Hermione for her own part was too busy working out where she should put her feet to be capable of polished banter. The expression on Snape's face, together with his rigid posture, suggested that he was hating it as much as her. His first words did nothing to dispel that impression. 

"Do you have the first idea how to dance, _Professor_?" 

"No," she spat back, too preoccupied to lie. "I hate it. And I can't do it." 

"_That_ is obvious." He breathed out heavily. "Tell me, have you ever seen me at one of these functions? Why didn't you just leave as soon as the tables were cleared?" 

"I tried, but I wasn't fast enough." 

"Yes, well, Hyacinth Hooch can be very quick off the mark." 

She almost blinked. Was he _excusing_ her? Then something else distracted her. 

"Hyacinth?" she said incredulously. "Madam Hooch's name is Hyacinth?" 

"Yes. Why do you comment?" 

"I've always thought of hyacinths as well... delicate things." At least eighty per cent of her attention was on the mechanics of dancing, so the words were out before she had a chance to realise what she'd said. 

"I would remind you that you still owe respect to your teachers, regardless of the current situation." The words rebuked her, but she could swear that there was a tremor of amusement in his voice. 

"Sorry, Prof - Miss Granger," she muttered with no real contrition. 

They continued dancing in silence. By now, she had become used to the sensation of seeing herself through someone else's eyes. But their close proximity made her conscious of the oddly pleasant feel of her own - real - body. How much smaller than Snape's it was. She hadn't realised the skin of her hands was so soft, or that her waist would feel so small by comparison to his bigger grip. Her hair was sleeker than she normally managed to get it, and it seemed to have a subtly different smell; or maybe she just wasn't used to smelling herself from another person's point of view. In fact, her skin seemed to be clearer than she remembered it as well. Obviously, he was taking her orders to look after her body seriously. 

_Wonderful. Snape is making a better job of your life than you are. What a depressing thought._

"I believe you will be able to take your leave after this dance," Snape's voice broke into her despondency. "I usually spend my time outside in the gardens, checking on any students out there." 

And then the music came to an end and she could step back from him again. It didn't seem to be a moment for lengthy farewells. With a curt nod of her head she turned on her heel and headed for the door. As she made her way past the clumps of students she noticed Snape being - was it _congratulated_ - by the other Gryffindors. She definitely thought she heard Neville say something like "you survived..." which curiously irked her. 

For heaven's sake, she thought rather crossly, he's not _that_ bad. 

Her mood was not improved by encountering Minerva McGonagall just at the door. 

"Leaving so soon, Severus?" she asked with a knowing smile. "I hope you didn't upset my Head Girl." 

"Your Head Girl is perfectly capable of taking care of herself," she snapped, not really examining whether she was referring to herself or Snape. "I'm sure she'll make a full recovery with suitable post-traumatic stress counselling." 

Suddenly furious with Harry, Ron, Neville, Dumbledore, McGonagall and anyone else who was unlucky enough to cross her line of sight, she swept outside and into the gardens. As she stalked down a gravel path, bordered with rose bushes a tell tale squeal alerted her to the presence of an illicit couple. Growling, she routed them out and deducted ten points from each of their houses. As they fled, she tapped her wand restlessly on her other hand, needing to do something more to relieve the ill-humour engendered by the casual flurry of anti-Snape sentiments. 

She glared at a defenceless rose bush. 

Pointing her wand at one of the blooms, she muttered a spell. The flower exploded, sending petals cascading to the ground in a waft of scent. She did it again. 

_Yes, this was definitely very satisfying._


	16. Jealousy Is All The Fun You Think They H...

**The Fire and the Rose Part 16**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Severus almost grinned with amusement at the sight of the rather _vigourously_ deadheaded roses as he headed for Herbology; the Ball had been an ordeal but, on the whole, it could have been considerably worse. Hermione seemed to have suffered rather more than he had - but then, he had not been forced to dance with Hyacinth Hooch. 

Lavender and Parvati had been quick to spread news that 'Hermione' was prepared to make the stuff that had improved her hair and skin and he had spent half the evening beseiged by what felt like most of the female students - it was an odd sensation, being sought out. Had he cared, he might have felt some pleasure in it; as it was, he decided to tolerate it on the basis that it seemed to confirm that no-one thought him to be anything other than Hermione. In truth, it would be tedious, churning out beauty potions whilst he was working on the ongoing series of experiments to discover what was involved in Longbottom's Miraculous Mind Mixer. Hermione had come up with the title in one of their less successful evenings - whilst they were cleaning the classroom of the detritus that had been the fallout from a rather spectacularly failed potion. 

The Herbology class passed with its usual leisure, with little attention needed from Snape - the practical elements of Herbology were second nature to him, after years of tending to the rarer plant-based ingredients needed for Potions, and today's class mostly involved practicing pruning and grafting techniques; they had also had to create a fertilizer from a formula that Sprout had given them to follow. Longbottom, of course, had it perfectly mixed and spread before anyone else. 

How, in the name of Merlin, could the boy recreate every last formula that Sprout produced and yet be such a complete buffoon in Potions classes? 

The most interesting piece of news to come from the class was nothing to do with Herbology; it was a rumour that Hooch had finally fallen victim to her own rather energetic dancing style. Harry had been somewhat concerned that the next match - against Slytherin - would be called off. Snape hoped it would; cheering on Gryffindor would be seriously supererogatory on his part. 

The rumour was true; Hermione found him after lunch, swooping down on him in the corridors with his heavy robes cloaking her. 

"Miss Granger, I need a word with you." She spoke coldly, and the few students still around flinched and clearly wondered what the Potions Professor had in store for the Head Girl. They would have been surprised to find out that, in fact, all that was in store was an outpouring of barely suppressed panic. They had barely reached his dungeon rooms before she started to pace across the floor. 

"Professor Hooch is ... incapacitated," she said, "apparently she tripped whilst dancing yesterday - I can't say I'm surprised - and Madam Pomfrey seems to believe it'll take a week or so to heal." She was almost snarling as she strode backwards and forwards. Snape leant back against the door, his arms folded. He had more or less got the hang of how to do that now, although he was a little alarmed at the attention that he seemed to garner from the boys around him when he did it. It wasn't as though he was showing any cleavage ... 

"I can't believe it'll take a week to heal - whatever it is; even Harry's arm was restored overnight when that idiot Lockhart bungled a healing spell. It's got to be personal .. I don't know what I said to her yesterday, but she's doing this on purpose, I know -" 

"Miss Granger." Snape cut across Hermione's mutterings. He was almost used to the idea of calling her by her first name now; her request some evenings ago hadn't been entirely unreasonable after all. All the same, this seemed to be a better way to get her attention - and it worked. She stopped pacing and whirled around. 

"What?" she demanded, then sighed. "I'm sorry, what did you want to say, Professor?" 

Snape just looked at her for a moment before speaking; he had rather preferred it when she forgot to be quite so polite. It was too peculiar to hear deference in his voice and see it in his stance. 

"You're not making a great deal of sense, Miss Granger; do stop taking all this so personally - it's unlikely to be a great trauma. We did survive the Ball, after all." He paused, but she didn't appear to be in a frame of mind to take his particular brand of humour this afternoon. "Exactly _what_ do you believe to be a personal attack? Professor Hooch's injury? That was simply something waiting to happen. And I rather doubt that Madam Pomfrey would hold back a person's healing simply to inconvenience me - she has too great a need of my potions for that. Can you be a little more ... well, detailed, perhaps?" 

Hermione nodded at him. "I have to referee the next match - the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall believe that it would be counterproductive for the match to be called off, particularly since Gryffindor-Slytherin isn't the most amicable match. So, since Hooch can't referee -" 

"You have to do it, as the only other qualified referee on the staff. What's the problem with that?" asked Snape, puzzled. 

Hermione laughed, a low grating sound with no humour whatsoever in it, and more than a tinge of desperation. He wasn't even aware he was capable of such a sound. "Take your choice. No knowledge of Quidditch and no particular skill at flying." 

"You're exaggerating, Hermione. You're the best friend of the Gryffindor Seeker and you've probably lost count of the number of matches you have attended in the past six years - you know more than you think you do. And you had flying lessons at least once a week for five years. Whilst you haven't had lessons since your OWLs -" Hermione interrupted him. 

"Fine - I know the absolute basics and nowhere near enough to referee. All Harry wants is congratulations - the play-by-play and analysis he saves for Ron _because he knows I couldn't care less_" shouted Hermione, a vein jumping in her neck. Snape watched it, distracted. He'd never realised he did that. She took a deep breath, apparently calming down. "As for flying, just because I had lessons, it doesn't mean I'm particularly competent. I was unbelievably grateful to give up that particular form of torture as soon as I could." 

Snape could feel another headache forming now. "At this rate," he muttered, "we're never going to get anywhere with the experiments. Very well, there isn't anything else for it. You're going to have to learn." 

"In a week?!" replied Hermione, with all the incredulity that he felt expressed in her voice. 

"That's all we have, I suggest we make the best of it. We'll practice this evening - the pitch is far enough from the castle for us to do so unobserved. Thankfully you're Head Girl so I should be able to get out without too many problems. Very well, nine o'clock at the pitch this evening. In the meantime, I suggest you read ..." Snape crossed to the bookcase and searched, then pulled out a slim volume, "this." He threw the book to Hermione who caught it easily and looked at it quizzically. 

"The Bluffer's Guide to Quidditch"?" she read the title aloud. 

"It'll teach you enough to be able to fake it, which is all we can hope for, I suspect." 

Snape spent the afternoon mentally creating a lesson plan on flying - the accelerated course. He deliberately avoided calling a crash course; they had quite enough to deal with already without bringing superstition-fuelled self-fulfilling drama into the mixture. His distraction was obvious, as he sat in the library with his head buried in books. This wasn't an unusual place, or position, for Hermione and he was largely left alone. Only two Ravenclaws disturbed him, each slipping a note requesting some of his next batch of skincare potions. 

By nine o'clock he was out on the pitch; night had fallen and he had sent a circle of fireballs into the air with a quick spell, shielding them so that they weren't obvious from the castle. He had cast a charm over the pitch as well, deflecting attention from it so that even if someone should glance from the winddows and see the illuminated area they would not remember it long enough to investigate. It wouldn't fool Dumbledore, but it should see off every other member of the staff and student body. 

Hermione appeared, a minute or so late, still clutching 'The Bluffer's Guide to Quidditch'. The panic clearly hadn't entirely subsided, as her first words indicated. 

"There are over seven hundred fouls, how on earth am I going to learn all of those in week?" she wailed; it wasn't a tone that suited his voice at all. 

"You aren't," said Snape sharply. "There is no published list of them, and not even Hooch knows all seven hundred; I certainly don't and you can guarantee that none of the players on the team do either. Just learn the more obvious ones - the book has illustrated examples, so you should be able to follow them - and mostly watch that they don't go over the boundaries, don't grab each other and don't use their wands. That last one deals with ninety percent of fouls anyway." 

Hermione looked slightly more mollified at that piece of news, but was still clearly worried. 

"That's still seventy fouls ..." 

Snape shook his head, staring into the sky as he gathered his patience. He would dearly love to lose his temper but, on the whole, he thought this would be over and done with faster if he kept a rein on it. 

"Miss Granger," he couldn't quite keep the sharpness from his tone though, and she snapped her head round, "as long as you can recognise blagging, blatching, blurting, bumphing, cobbing, flacking, haversacking, quafflepacking, snitchnip and stooging, you'll be fine. Learn those and you'll know more than those infants are capable of memorising or performing. And do remember that they don't know they are being referreed by Hermione Granger. I have worked long and hard to develop my reputation and you - so far - have not managed to destroy it. I suggest you use it to your advantage." 

Hermione had flicked her way to and fro through the book as he listed the ten most common fouls - apparently trying to find each as he mentioned it. Now she looked up, and it was clear from her expression that she had finally understood that the teams were unlikely to test the Potions Master as referee; even the Slytherins were unlikely to try anything - more than once. 

"Now - flying. Get on the broomstick and take a circuit of the pitch so I can see what we're dealing with." 

Hermione handed the book to him and went to stand by the broomstick he had brought out for her - his Nimbus 1700. Not the most contemporary model, but it suited his purposes. He heard her mutter "Up" reluctantly and then look startled when the broom leapt to her hand. She got onto it gingerly, pushed off and looped around the field - slowly at first, then with increasing speed. 

She landed in front of him a little later, catching the broomstick before it fell to the floor. 

"Miss Granger, perhaps if you were a little less of a perfectionist, you might find life rather less traumatic. I would not say that you had any obvious problems in flying - your technique needs some work before the match but you are clearly not the total incompetent you pretend to be." 

Hermione had looked puzzled as she landed, and spoke now slowly in reply. "I think ... I think your body has something to do with it. I've never flown like that in my life; it's as though my body knew what to do - I certainly wasn't dictating that flight." 

Snape thought for a moment, then nodded. 

"Very probably. Be grateful for small mercies then - and get practicing. My body may know what to do, but your mind needs some training." 


	17. Whose Side Are You On Anyway, Ref?

**The Fire and the Rose Part 17**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. The fic will have 40 episodes in total and new episodes will be posted late every Saturday night UK time. Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

If anyone had noticed a marked drop off in the nocturnal excursions of Professor Snape, no one had seen fit to mention anything about it. Hermione had, from time to time, spared a passing concern for Argus Filch, who seemed to regard himself and Snape as the last bastion of defence against wholesale student anarchy in the corridors. She had even gone so far as to make a mental plan to take some midnight trips just to allay any suspicions that he might have. However, adding flying lessons to her already nerve-rackingly crowded timetable, simply meant that her nights were passed in as lengthy a period of unconsciousness as she could achieve. In retrospect, her third year experiences with the time-turner were beginning to look positively restful. 

The combination of Snape's muscle memory, and a broom that was rather more sharply engineered and maintained that the average school example, was making the current ordeal a little less horrendous than she had feared. Snape was not particularly patient with her, but he did have a knack of explaining the physical movements, and his body was rather more adept at putting those commands into practice than her usual one was. Which was fair enough when you thought about it; he _ought_ to know what his own body was capable of. 

There were even moments when she caught a glimpse of the attraction that flying had for Harry and Ron. _Moments_. However, they were far outweighed by the times of gut-wrenching panic when she realised that she would not only have to deal with flying, but also with paying attention to fourteen people, all moving in different directions; at least half of whom would be hell bent on inflicting surreptitious damage on any and all of the other half. 

At the moment she was lying in the bath, soaking her weary body, and trying to absorb as much of _The Bluffer's Guide to Quidditch_ as she could before she was forced to give in and go to bed. She was now adjusting to the long, lean masculine body stretched in the water in front of her, and the business of looking after it no longer caused her any embarrassment. She hadn't even cut herself shaving in a while. 

And as for the other parts of the body.... Snape woke up with an erection surprisingly often, she had discovered. Or at least she assumed it was surprisingly often. It was not, she recognised wryly, as if she had extensive experience upon which to base a comparison. And she had discovered that, whilst a cold shower was undoubtedly effective, the alternative manner of dealing with it was considerably more pleasant, not to mention nowhere near as traumatic on the body first thing in the morning. 

She shifted in the water a little, conscious that it was beginning to get cold. She closed the book, and hauled herself upright, dripping. She summoned a towel and began to dry herself absently, wondering if there was any chance that this next match would be the one where Harry decided to emulate Roderick Plumpton and catch the Snitch in three and a half seconds. Positives: Harry would get into the history books - again - and she would be spared the prospect of making a fool of herself - and Snape, she was forced to concede. Negatives: no, she couldn't think of any just at the moment. Which meant that she was unlikely to be that lucky. 

She rubbed off the last of the water, and tossed the towel over the side of the bath for the house-elves to deal with. Naked, she padded through into the bedroom, muscles still aching enough for her to be aware of them. It was because she didn't relax, Snape said. 

_If you would just relax, Miss Granger, you would find that your body will naturally adjust your centre of gravity to the movement. If you persist in rigidly fighting against it, you _will_ fall off._

The pain in her left hip testified to the accuracy of that statement. Not to mention the fact that he was sufficiently irritated to be calling her _Miss Granger_ again. Yawning, she dug out a clean pair of boxers, pulled them on, and slid into bed, telling herself that she _would_ get through this. 

Hermione woke on the Saturday morning of the match, however, to find that the greater part of her confidence had evaporated. Too agitated to do anything other than dress and down a cup of black coffee - a beverage that she was taking to with some enthusiasm - she stalked to the potions room and paced the classroom waiting for Snape to arrive. When he finally walked through the door, the expression on his face did not encourage her to share her apprehensions. She guessed that he had been thoroughly victim to the Potter/Weasley pre-match hype, involving off-key chanting, inarticulate shouting and a truly frightening level of anti-Slytherin sentiment. Even she, as a Gryffindor, found it a little much. She could only speculate on the reaction of the Slytherin Head of House. 

The book bag landed on a workbench with a thump that spoke volumes, and Snape strode over to the cauldrons left standing overnight. 

"Shall we get started?" he said, in a tone that was plainly not a request. 

Hermione just nodded. Initially, she was grateful to have something to do, hoping that it would take her mind off the upcoming match. However, it didn't. In fact, it seemed that there was irritatingly little for her to do that morning, so she was reduced to pacing restlessly running rules and fouls through her head. She was beginning to feel a headache starting, and a nagging craving for something sweet to eat. She didn't think that she would get away with a trip to the kitchens though. Her stomach tightened and her pacing became more intense. 

Matters came to a head, when she was playing out a double eight loop in her mind. Snape's voice stopped her train of thought abruptly. 

"For the love of Merlin, Miss Granger, do stop wandering about." 

She stopped. 

"I'm sorry." 

He sighed with a long-suffering air. 

"Is this about this afternoon?" 

She nodded, trying not to bite her lip. 

"I assure that you are making far too much of a drama out of this. Your flying skills will be adequate. I have no doubt that your grasp of the rules is sufficient. There are more important things to concentrate on." 

_Well, that was easy for him to say. He wasn't the one going out there._

"I can't concentrate on anything else," she said, trying not to sound as pitiful as she felt. By the look on his face she failed rather badly. 

"Well then," he said impatiently, "if you can't keep still, kindly go somewhere else to panic before you knock something over and further complicate Mr Longbottom's sole Potions achievement." 

Where was she supposed to go? She could only return to his rooms, and she didn't think that that was likely to calm her overmuch. She voiced the thought before it occurred to her that he really wasn't going to care. 

He didn't. 

"Miss Granger, how am I supposed to know what it will take to calm you down?" He sighed. "What do you want to do?" 

She thought. 

_Eat ice cream. Specific ice cream. Haagen-Dazs ice cream. At the Haagen-Dazs cafe in Leicester Square. Hardly a practicable idea._

Snape did not seem to agree. 

"Well, if that's what you want to do, just get on with it." 

"Excuse me, Professor," she said sharply, "but just how exactly am I supposed to do that?" She glared at him. The situation was bad enough without him mocking her. "It's not as if I can just apparate there, can I?" 

He looked at her steadily. 

_He couldn't seriously be suggesting that she...._

"I assume that you have studied the technique." 

_He bloody well was._

"Yes," she said cautiously, "but I don't have a licence." 

"No," he said with exaggerated patience, "but _I_ do. And if it will get you out from under my feet for the rest of the morning, and get you to cease these annoying attacks of hysterics, it will be a small price to pay." 

She was speechless. 

"Follow the path towards Hogsmeade. When you cross the castle boundary strike left off the path and you will find somewhere concealed enough from which to apparate. There is some Muggle money in the top left hand drawer of the dresser in the sitting room." His eyebrow arched as she struggled to control her features. "I am not bound to the castle by an enchantment, Miss Granger. Even I visit the _outside world_ from time to time. If you are not back by two o'clock I shall inform the Headmaster and do attempt _not_ to splinch yourself whilst you are using my body. Now, get out of my sight." 

She didn't need to be told twice. She fled back into his rooms, hastily searching the dresser for the money. To her surprise there was a considerable supply. She pulled out some notes and small change. Honesty compelled her to leave a scribbled note of the amount, so that she could repay him later. She was about to leave when it occurred to her that Diagon Alley was one thing, but she could hardly wander about Leicester Square in full black wizarding robes. She supposed that meant she needed to transfigure something. She went into the bedroom, and began to look through the chest of drawers. Given that Snape was pretty predictable in his habits of dress, she had seen no need to investigate further than finding a reasonable supply of everyday clothes. She doubted she'd find anything much in his other clothes but she might as well look. 

The first drawer she sorted through contained a fairly standard collection of masculine odds and ends. Nothing that was of very much help to her in the circumstances. With little hope she pulled open the drawer underneath it - and was rendered speechless for the second time that day. 

With careful, not to mention disbelieving, hands she pulled out a significant quantity of black denim. She held it up, mind still not quite accepting what her eyes were telling her. Jeans. Narrow cut, button front fly, label stamped with three numbers - five, oh, one. Very nice. She shook her head. 

_Well, well, well, Professor. Yet more surprises._

She threw them on to the bed. Another dive into the drawer brought her in contact with something very soft. She tugged at it, to reveal a Muggle sweater; black, naturally, and cashmere - also naturally, she thought with a wry twist. 

Well, that resolved the issue of what she was going to wear. Quickly she stripped off her robes to replace them with jeans and the sweater. The Muggle clothes outlined her body in ways that the robes definitely didn't. Nice, she thought again. _Very nice._ A search through the wardrobe revealed a well cut leather jacket - black, of course. Hermione checked the label. _Armani_. No one could accuse Professor Snape of not having a eye for quality, she thought wickedly. She wondered what else was hidden in his closets; the sudden insight into his taste for good Muggle clothes had inexplicably lifted her heart. 

Forcing her face into a scowl, she wrapped his cloak around her to disguise the clothes, and headed out of the castle. 

Half an hour later, she was sitting in Leicester Square happily eating her way through a three scoop sundae made up of Belgian Chocolate, Pralines and Cream and Macadamia Nut Brittle topped off with hot chocolate fudge sauce, whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. As she thought it through, she realised that although he had been foully rude about it, he had not only given her permission to apparate using his licence - which could get him into serious trouble if anyone found out about it - he had effectively paid for her to be there. At that moment - at a safe distance from Hogwarts - she could almost feel that she liked the man. 

Back at Hogwarts, sitting on Snape's broom in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, watching Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy - the respective House Seekers and Team Captains - squaring off at each other, Hermione felt considerably less charitable towards him. She knew that he would be up in the Gryffindor seats somewhere; the only vague satisfaction that she could feel was that he would have to cheer on Gryffindor, no doubt whilst sitting next to Neville Longbottom. She had eaten nothing but her earlier ice-cream, and the richness was now sitting heavily on her stomach, making her feel faintly queasy. For a moment she wondered if she could get out of this by faking illness; but Madam Pomfrey had too many effective remedies at her disposal for that to work. 

Remedies for every complaint except Hooch's Dangerous Dancing, she thought bitterly. She was still unconvinced that the Flying Teacher hadn't done this on purpose. 

She was also trying to put the pre-match conversation with Professor McGonagall out of her mind - if you could call it a conversation. 

"I complained to the Headmaster in the _strongest_ terms about a Head of House refereeing a match involving his own house. I warn you that if I see the _slightest_ hint of favouritism, I shall be asking for the result to be set aside." She really hadn't appreciated the degree of outright hostility between her own Head of House and Snape that flared on occasions like these. 

Now she was waiting for everyone to get ready to begin. Harry was glaring at Draco who was glaring right back. Above her, she supposed that Ron - Gryffindor Beater like his brothers before him - and Ginny - one of the Chasers - were moving into position. Her peripheral vision caught the Slytherin Chasers circling above like green and silver vultures. It was probably too late to wish that she had paid more attention to the etiquette of these moments. Instinctively she glanced towards the staff box. Dumbledore was there; she could see him beaming. She could also see Hooch, who caught her eye and gave her a cheery wave. 

_Not personal, eh?_

She tightened her grip on Snape's broom, blew her whistle sharply, and then threw the Quaffle into the air. 

And all hell broke loose. 

A game that looked merely dangerous from the stands, looked suicidally reckless from the point of view of the referee. Hermione was so busy trying to concentrate on the players and avoid being injured in the process, that she almost forgot her lack of confidence in flying and what followed certainly ranked as one of the most confused two and a half hours of her life. Moves that looked perfectly obvious when set out on paper were translated into actual play as a sort of free for all melee, where she was reduced to dispensing a form of summary justice to the last person that she saw actually doing anything. More than once players of both sides looked as if they were going to object to her decisions. Even Draco Malfoy was heard to mutter "whose side are you on anyway...?" under his breath. 

Ron, however, was the worst. 

"But, Professor," he had protested after she had awarded a penalty to Slytherin, "Malfoy clearly grabbed Ginny...." 

She didn't doubt it, but hadn't seen it in the confusion. She glared. 

"Are you questioning my judgement, Mr Weasley?" _Please just shut up, Ron._

He had subsided, although there was much rumbling from the Gryffindor stands. 

Purgatory continued. 

And then the miracle happened. There was a massive cheer from the Gryffindor stands and she looked up to see Harry with the Snitch clutched in his right hand, doing victory rolls over the pitch. 

If she had had the energy she would have done one herself, just for the fact of it being over. She was more than proud of herself that she managed to get off the pitch and to her rooms before her legs started to shake. 

Later that evening she and Snape met in the Potions Room. He simply looked at her as she sat at his desk, her earlier restlessness replaced with exhaustion. 

"Do not ever ask me to do that again," she said with feeling. 

He snorted. 

"Do try to curb your tendency towards melodrama, Hermione. It appears that both sides are of the opinion that the game could have been better refereed by a blind, senile cripple, and that fouls and offside plays were missed in almost every minute of the match." He paused and Hermione waited gloomily for the stinging criticism. "And as that particular conversation takes place after just about every known sporting event, I can only conclude that your performance was acceptable. Certainly, Professor McGonagall is currently nauseatingly jubilant about _her_ victory." He twisted the word _her_ with irony, and Hermione felt her lips twitch in response. She knew exactly what he meant. 

He moved towards the cauldrons that he had been working on. 

"I trust that your trip to London this morning was uneventful." She supposed that was as close as he was likely to get to asking if she felt better. She also noted that he was using her given name again. 

"Completely uneventful," she confirmed as she eased herself up, ready to assist him. 

"Oh, and Professor," she added with a sudden impulse of mischief, "I have to say that Armani is a _very_ good look on you." 


	18. A Medley of Extemporanea

**The Fire and the Rose Part 18**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

November wore on; the weather was foul, and not even the interesting variety of foul - a blizzard would have been a welcome variation on the grey skies and sheeting rain that kept the entire school cooped up indoors. Tempers and mischief rose inside as the rain sluiced down outside. 

Snape was curled in the armchair by the fire in his room; he had found a stack of startlingly interesting magazines under Hermione's bed earlier and, frankly, they were about the only thing keeping him sane right now. He had been hunting for Crookshanks - again - to make sure that the cat was not about to ambush him from some hiding place or another. Whilst everyone else was clearly oblivious to the switch between himself and Hermione, the cat was not; he was clearly suspicious that Snape had usurped his mistress' body for nefarious purposes and, from time to time, decided to launch a series of attacks on the interloper in his domain. Snape had wished, not for the first time, that there was some easy way to get Hermione up to his room - well, to her room, in fact - without running the risk of discovery. It would ... challenging ... to come up with an explanation as to _why_ the Potions Master was visiting the Head Girl's rooms. 

The magazines had been filed neatly under the bed, tucked behind the valance in a small stack. Snape had assumed them to be _Witch Weekly_ or some similarly tedious thing and was about to let the valance drop back when some words on the cover of the uppermost magazine caught his eye. 

_Mindblowing sex - how to make him come for hours!_

It was the exclamation mark that did it; of course it was. That and, naturally, curiosity about Muggles. There was no other possible reason for him to have taken the magazine from the stack; this was clearly a Muggle magazine, and he had been interested in Muggle society all his life - one way and another. This was reason, nothing more. 

Snape wondered whether he was remotely convincing. He suspected not. Nonetheless, he read the magazine that evening from cover to cover in a bemused fascination - the magazine declared itself to be "Cosmopolitan", but Snape rather thought that it re-defined the concept of cosmopolitan. Or perhaps Muggles meant something different by their use of the word - something relating to sex, diets and fashion. 

The fashion was peculiar - Snape wondered why there was so much fuss about witches and wizards having to don Muggle clothing when they went out into that world; it looked as though you could wear pretty much any odd mixture of clothing and be declared 'cutting edge'. In fact, he was relatively certain some of the designers had to be witches - and influenced by wizarding clothing. One issue of the magazine featured a designer called Zandra Rhodes; he was positive he had seen her in Diagon Alley, at Madam Malkin's, last summer. The pink hair was unmissable. 

Witch-influenced or not, the clothing was just odd. Snape had stared at his - borrowed - figure in the mirror for a while, wondering why anyone would dress that way. All told, Hermione had a surprisingly intriguing body - _that_ was a thought he'd scuttled away from as fast as possible - but he couldn't see that it would be enhanced by most of the clothes in the picture. The short skirts were a possibility though ... no, better not think about that either. 

A man's mind in a woman's body produced the most bizarrely conflicting hormone responses. 

The diets were similarly odd - Muggles apparently knew nothing of the potions that would re-align the insulin response that caused most of their weight problems, and they ate the most appalling rubbish, which seemed to cause the rest of those weight problems. It was no particular wonder that they needed diets. Snape wondered whether anyone ever succeeded in following these; reading the restrictions alone sent him straight to Hermione's cache of chocolate. He made a mental note to replace it the next time he went into Hogsmeade; it was becoming clear, from their continuing failure to fathom out what was in Longbottom's Liquid Leap, that they would have to wait for the mandrakes to mature before they returned to normal but, all the same, Snape thought he had better restock the chocolate sooner rather than later. 

Apart from anything else, last week's repeat of 'the joys of being a woman' had convinced him - if he had needed convincing - of the medicinal properties of chocolate. He _loathed_ being at the mercy of his hormones; well, not even his hormones, they were Hermione's. And she could have them back, thank you very much. 

But, then again, when those hormones weren't running rampant, they produced some wonderful entertainment. Which brought him back to the magazine again; it was ... highly instructive. Rather more so than he would have expected just a couple of months ago - because _now_ he could appreciate the commentary and suggestions from both points of view. 

A man's mind in a woman's body really did produce the most bizarrely conflicting hormone responses. 

Snape shut the magazine; he would read it again later, and the rest in the pile. There was no point in fooling himself otherwise. It was, though, more than prurient curiosity; his thoughts wandered back to Hermione. His first reaction had been surprise that she would read such trash - the magazine was hardly a model of good literature - but that thought had been chased rapidly away by a new realisation that it was not perhaps out of character. Two months had provided, apart from novel private physical entertainment, a growing awareness of the mind that currently inhabited his body. 

It was hard to continue to treat her as a student, as a child. To look up at her, into a face he knew all too well, and to be aware of the way she would be treated by everyone else ensured that he could not treat her that way. He had tried to treat her as a student - and it was not in his nature to appear to treat her very differently, after all, he treated everyone apart from the Headmaster as a student - but if he did not make a conscious effort, he would treat her as an equal. She was, all told, the closest thing now that he had to an equal. 

Snape shied away from the insistent thought that, when all this was over and done with, they would be equals. There was little hope that Hermione would escape the more extreme elements of his life; he was grateful - and terrified - that she had not yet been summoned. Grateful because it had given her more time to perfect her act, although he would never tell her just how good it was, and terrified because the longer Voldemort allowed between summons, the more painful the summons inevitably was. 

Which would mean that the one person who truly understood him, who knew the layers of his life, would be an eighteen-year-old know-it-all. Fate was a ridiculous thing. 

In all this musing, it didn't occur to Snape that he would - in the same way - be the one person who understood Hermione Granger and the oddities and complexities of her life. 

A loud rap on the door heralded the arrival of two of those particular oddities. No-one could call them particularly complex, but Harry Potter and Ron Weasley could generally be counted upon to be odd. Snape was almost certainly that last week's menstrual cycle had been brought on early by the stress resulting from listening to them hype themselves up for the Gryffindor-Slytherin match. 

He tucked the magazine under the chair - he was fairly certain that Hermione would not want the pair knowing about it, and he was definitely not prepared to have to listen to them chortle over it with childish sniggers at something of which they undoubtedly had no direct knowledge. Snape thought it extremely unlikely that either had lost their virginity; then was almost nauseated by the realisation that he was thinking about the boys' sex lives. 

Snape almost ran for the door, trying to escape the thought. 

"It's late, why aren't you in your dormitory?" he asked, sighing. He couldn't immediately see what the time was - he had taken off his watch - but dinner had been rather a long time ago, and he had even managed to spend some time in the dungeons checking on the progress of the experiments (and starting the next batch of skin care potion orders) before he had returned to his room and the magazine. Hermione had been immersed in one of his books and hadn't been particularly communicative. 

"We've got an idea," said Ron in a rush. Snape suppressed a groan. A Weasley idea was a dangerous thing. Harry had the grace to look rather uncomfortable, which suggested that he thought the same thing. 

"I don't want to know, Ron. I'm Head Girl and, if you tell me, I'm pretty sure I'll have to do something about it. Are you sure you want to take the consequences?" 

"Oh, who cares?" came Ron's reply. "Snape took enough points of us this morning, the greasy git, that no-one would notice anyway." 

Snape winced slightly at Ron's casual dismissal of him and almost ground his teeth in frustration that he couldn't tell Ron _exactly_ who it was that he was speaking to. Knowing what the students thought of him was one thing; having it confirmed to his face was another. 

"Come on Hermione," urged Harry, "you know we'll get into trouble if you don't come along with us." Emotional blackmail - and it worked every time, on Hermione and now on Snape. Besides, he was certain Hermione would give in; the two boys were rarely found without her when they were breaking rules, so it would be rather out of character for him to flatly refuse to go with them. 

He gave in. "What are we doing?" he sighed. Ron grinned. 

"It's the Map - Harry's managed to get it to show another passageway, it looks like it goes from the Arithmancy Tower, and we thought we'd see if it led anywhere interesting." 

Shaking his head, Snape followed the two boys as they turned and left the room. Ron looked over his shoulder to check whether Snape was coming. He was, unwillingly. He knew exactly which passageway Ron was talking about, and it led nowhere interesting at all - simply surfaced in the Herbology glasshouses. He had no idea _why_ there was a passage from the Arithmancy Towers to the glasshouses but Hermione would undoubtedly not know that there even was a passageway - so he had to keep quiet and follow, rather than tell them that they were wasting their time. 

It was late - the common room was empty, and the silence suggested that the younger students were all asleep and most of the older students similarly so. Which meant, of course, that they were breaking curfew by sneaking out of the Gryffindor Tower. Somehow, Snape was pretty sure that there was no point in checking whether the boys realised. Potter and Weasley paid as much attention to curfew as they did to anything else - apart from Quidditch. 

The Fat Lady opened to let them out with nothing more than a 'tut' of disapproval - she was clearly used to the boys' nocturnal comings and goings - and they crept along the corridors, hidden under Harry's invisibility cloak. The school at night was very faintly sinister, full of dark shadows and unexplained noises. Snape had spent enough time prowling the same corridors on his duty nights, trying to stop students from doing precisely what they were doing now, to be comfortable and familiar with the shadows and noise but, somehow, seeing it from a different perspective - a foot lower than normal, hidden behind the shimmer of an invisibility cloak and with the rather disturbing heavy breathing of two half-grown men on his neck - made it all subtly unfamiliar. 

The trip to the Tower was relatively uneventful - they were caught on a staircase, and had to detour through some second-floor corridors, but there was no sign of any of the teachers. 

Until they reached the Tower. 

Unable to cast a spell under the cloak, Harry had dropped it to aim his wand at the lock; Snape heard him draw breath to unlock the door when a cold voice echoed softly in the corridor behind them. 

"And just what do you three think you're doing here, at this time of night?" 

Snape had never realised quite how menacing his voice could sound. He would have been more pleased at the discovery if he hadn't been on the receiving end. 


	19. Objects In The Mirror Can Be Larger Than...

**The Fire and the Rose Part 19**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 epidsodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

It was turning out, Hermione reflected, to be considerably less difficult to be Snape than she might have at first thought. She closed the book that she was reading - another selection from his seemingly endless library - and gazed into the fire. When you got down to it, she concluded, there was little more involved than getting the syllabus right, showing up to meetings on time and having a near-limitless capacity for drinking the Headmaster's tea. That and being grumpy and bad-tempered at every available opportunity. 

No one disturbed her of an evening with new and exciting ways to involve her in breaking school rules. No one arrived on her doorstep in tears or fury, expecting her to have the answer to their current relationship crisis. No one looked pitifully at her, wailing "but Hermione, I tried that and it _still_ didn't work". All in all, the life of Snape seemed to have some significant advantages over her own. It came with an extensive library, good clothes, an Apparating licence and freedom to come and go as you pleased 

She deliberately glossed over the small issue of He-Who-Need-Not-Be-Thought-About-At-The-Moment-If-You-Don't-Mind. 

She was not even missing Harry and Ron as much as she had expected to. The change of perspective had brought it home to her that she was always very much on the periphery of the trio; the one who made the schemes work or who chimed in as the Voice of Caution. Not only that, although she was grateful that the situation hadn't been discovered, she almost wished that Harry and Ron had made some kind of comment. Either Snape was doing a picture perfect impression of her, or the boys didn't pay her enough attention to be able to detect any changes. She suspected it was the latter, and it made her feel irrationally put out. 

_You would think that your best friends would have some idea.... _

Now that she was in the position of having to control groups of wilful teenagers in possession of assorted volatile substances, she was beginning to understand just how annoying their casual attitude to rules and procedures could be; what seemed amusingly daring from the point of view of the student became downright dangerous from the point of view of the teacher. She made a slightly guilty mental note to be a little less _forward_ in class once she got her own body back. 

Of course, she still thought that Snape went too far in the other direction in his treatment of the boys. But she didn't feel nearly as badly about taking house points from them as she sometimes felt that she should have done. 

In fact her life had taken on a rather pleasing routine. Evenings with Snape were becoming positively enjoyable; not that he was exactly communicative, content to get on with the Potions answer to accident reconstruction, leaving her to her own devices unless he wanted something specific. Which left her free to watch him surreptitiously from behind her book. 

There was no doubt that it was still a little odd to see herself moving among the cauldrons, working deftly and almost off-handedly with the ingredients, comfortable and confident. She was certain that she had never been that fluid when her own mind was in control. The more she observed, the more she thought that she could detect mannerisms and movements that stemmed from his mind rather than her body. He definitely _did_ use it differently to her, she concluded, deciding not to question too closely the fact that she found the juxtaposition rather compelling. 

That evening he had seemed to be splitting his attention between testing the interaction of dried nettle leaves and powdered stag beetle carapace, and a batch of something else. Snape was, of course, more than capable of running two, and indeed more, experiments at once, but she had caught some fumes from the smaller cauldron and they had been... well... perfumed. She hadn't enquired directly, not wanting to disturb him, or deprive herself of the opportunity to watch herself at work, but the tantalising smell lingered in her mind. 

Well, it was technically her domain. There was no reason why she shouldn't go and have a look at what he was up to. 

She put her book to one side and negoiated the complicated set of wards - she supposed he had reason enough to be paranoid - which allowed her entry into the work area. The beetle/nettle experiment had been cleared away; another dead end, she assumed. He would have told her quickly enough if he had found any way of getting them both out of this situation before March. However, the other cauldron had a creamy substance in it. It was definitely the source of the fragrance. It didn't look hot or posionous. Experimentally, she poked a finger into it. It came away coated in a thick white liquid. She smeared it over her fingers and sniffed. It smelt floral. 

_Floral_ and _Snape_ were not two words that got used the in same sentence very often. 

It smelt like some kind of cosmetic. 

_Cosmetic._

Memories of a conversation two months ago came back to her. 

One in which he had told her that she should be able to make lotions and the such-like for herself. One in which she had told him to go ahead as long as no one noticed. She looked again at the cauldron. Well, there was making cosmetics and there was making cosmetics. There was enough here to last her for _years_. It looked like he was preparing to supply the whole of Gryffindor House, if not Hogwarts. She shook her head. If his own bathroom was anything to go by, he had little or no experience of anything more than basic hygiene. Perhaps, he was overcompensating. She made a mental note to have a word with him about it. 

She was about to finish up and go back to her rooms, when there was a knock on the door. 

It made her jump. It was late and no one - but _no one_ - sought out Professor Snape when they didn't have to. 

The visitor turned out to be, of all people, Professor McGonagall. And she looked worried. Very worried. 

"Ah, Severus, I thought I might find you here when you weren't in your rooms." 

Hermione felt a flutter of apprehension. Given what she had been able to glean of the personal relationship between McGonagall and Snape, she felt that her Head of House was unlikely to be paying unsolicited late evening calls to the dungeons unless there was something very badly wrong. Certainly not to make bland comments about his whereabouts. She sought the appropriate response. 

"What do you want, Minerva?" 

"You obviously haven't heard then?" 

_Obviously._

"Heard what?" 

She didn't like the way this was going. Her earlier confidence about the ease of being Snape began to wobble. 

Minerva McGonagall sighed. 

"I thought that you might have done, under the circumstances." 

_What circumstances?_

Hermione didn't need to feign her shortness, although she made worry look like annoyance. 

The Head of Gryffindor gathered herself. 

"There's been another Death Eater attack." 

_Oh Gods!_

Hermione fought not to visibly panic. 

"Who?" she asked curtly, not trusting herself to manage more. Names and faces were flying through her head - her family, the Weasleys; shock making her momentarily forget that McGonagall thought that she was Snape. 

"Alice Lacock's family." 

She had to struggle with the name; familiar, yet not one that she was expecting to hear. 

"Severus?" 

She had been silent too long. McGonagall's concerned query didn't so much bring her back to _herself_ as bring her back to the fact that she was supposed to be someone else. 

"What happened?" The question was as much to buy herself time as anything. 

"The usual sort of thing, I would imagine." The Scotswoman's voice was harsh. "Fortunately, the Ministry appears to have had some advance warning. The Aurors were there moments after the Death Eaters and disrupted it. Amelia Lacock suffered Crucio but survived. She's in St Mungo's at the moment. Brian Lacock was taken by the Death Eaters when they apparated out. The Ministry are searching for him now." 

"I see." Again trying to get her mind to work not panic. 

"You'll have to tell the girl, of course." 

That remark sent Hermione's panic spiralling again. 

_Me? Why me? There must be someone else. This has to be Dumbledore's job, not mine._

"I would have thought that the Headmaster...." 

"Albus was called away urgently to the Ministry earlier this evening. I'm sorry, Severus, and before you ask - no, I won't be involved. It should come from her Head of House. You'll just have to do it." McGonagall sounded very tired, the combative tone almost absent from her voice. "Her grandfather will be here in the morning to take her to St Mungo's to see her mother. Otherwise, it's best if she stays here. I'll let you know if there's any more news." 

Hermione watched as the other woman left and tried not to give in to her first impulse to flee to her old rooms and dump this squarely back on to Snape. She couldn't do this; simply couldn't. They would have to stop this ridiculous charade; find some other solution. She was half way to the door, when she realised the significance of something else that McGonagall had said: _I thought that you might have heard._

_Why didn't he know? Why hadn't he told her?_

She stopped and shook her head to try and clear it. This was ridiculous. She was going to get Snape and that was all there was to it. She told herself this repeatedly, striding through the corridors, oblivious to her surroundings until she found herself coming to a standstill part way down a stretch of bare, damp stone wall. 

The entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. 

_No. This wasn't where I was going. I was going to the_ Gryffindor _Common Room._

And yet.... 

She remembered Alice Lacock. A third year Slytherin. Unusually quiet. A small, shy girl who had come to Hermione's door one day, wanting to ask the Head Girl about a personal problem. And she had come intermittently ever since, talking in circles, sometimes sitting in embarassed silence, but never once telling Hermione precisely _what_ was wrong. 

If she refused to continue with the arrangement, Snape could no longer continue in his role as a spy. If he could no longer continue as a spy then the Ministry would be able to stop less attacks. Which meant that more families like the Lacocks would be put in danger, and Alice Lacock's parents might have died. She didn't want to think about the fact that Brian Lacock might still be dead. And this was irrespective of the personal danger that they would both be in. 

_Damn!_

She muttered the password and entered the Slytherin Common Room. 

The long, low room was all but deserted at that time of night, but she was still greeted with a handful of "Good evening, Professor Snape"s. She looked around and spotted Millicent Bulstrode in one corner. 

Pansy must still be out somewhere with Draco, she thought with a burst of pure Hermione. Perfect. 

"Miss Bulstrode," she said, without moving from the entrance to the Common Room. Millicent visibly jumped. 

"Yes, Professor Snape." 

"I would be grateful if you would go up to the third year dormitories and get Miss Lacock for me. I need to speak to her as a matter of urgency." 

Millicent Bulstrode blinked once, and then disappeared. She was back a few silent minutes later with a sleepy Alice Lacock, who had clearly had just enough time to pull a robe on over her nightdress. 

_Here goes._

"Thank you. Miss Bulstrode. Miss Lacock, I need to to speak to you privately. Will you accompany me to my office?" The girl's eyes widened in apprehension and something else that Hermione didn't have the spare time or attention to analyse. She meekly followed behind as Hermione led the way along the corridor. 

When they finally got to the office, she found she had no idea how to begin; no idea at all how Snape would handle this. She doubted that he would offer the hot chocolate and sympathy of Albus Dumbledore. Then again, she couldn't imagine that even _he_ would say "Death Eaters attacked your family, your mother's injured, your father's missing, I hope your Potions homework won't be late because of this". 

The girl was looking at her, face pale, hair tousled from sleep, waiting for her to say something. 

_Damn it. This simply wasn't fair._

"Miss Lacock," she began, "please take a seat." The girl obediently sat down. "I have some... um... bad news I'm afraid." She swallowed. Bad start. Snape didn't stammer. Alice seemed not to notice, but she did get a little paler. "There was an attack tonight, and I'm sorry to to tell you that your parents were..." _what?_ "... hurt," she settled for. She tried to ignore the tears forming in Alice's eyes. There was no other option than to just get it over with. There was no way to dress it up nicely. "Your mother was injured, and is in St Mungo's. Your father is missing and the Ministry are looking for him." Hermione ploughed on, deliberately not looking at the girl with her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. "Your grandfather will be here tomorrow to take you to St Mungo's. Otherwise, we think it best if you stay here. You will, of course, be told as soon as there is any news about your father." 

Alice Lacock was now sobbing audibly. Hermione felt utterly helpless. The only experience she had to fall back on was her own; she had no frame of reference for putting a Snape spin on this. She didn't feel even slightly Snape-ish, but completely like herself. She couldn't just sit impassively and watch this happen. She fished in her robes and brought out a handkerchief. Moving over to the girl's chair, she laid an awkward hand on one shoulder and pressed the large square of white cotton into a shaking hand. 

"Um, Miss Lacock... Alice... can I get you anything... a cup of tea, perhaps?" _Oh yes, that'll make it all all right._

A small hand clenched on hers where she was trying to hand over the handkerchief and then Alice Lacock buried her face in Hermione's robes. Even as she patted the girl uncertainly, she was fairly convinced that this was something that Snape _wouldn't_ do. 

There'll be hell to pay when he finds out about this, she thought miserably, torn in two by the anguish of the girl clutching at her. 

She carried on giving as much comfort as she dared, and eventually Alice calmed enough to return to her dormitory. Still feeling responsible, Hermione offered to walk her back to the entrance to the Common Room. She did note that Alice seemed to stay very close to her, but she was still off balance and simply put it down to distress. When they parted at the concealed entrance Alice turned to her suddenly and said: 

"Thank you, Professor Snape. For _everything_." Alice's eyes were wide and still shining with tears, and her face was slightly flushed. There was something in her expression that unnerved Hermione a fraction. 

"That's all right," she said, striving to regain the appropriate detachment. "Now, go back to bed and try to get some sleep." 

Obediently, Alice disappeared through the wall. It was only after that wall had closed again that Hermione realised that she hadn't retrieved her handkerchief. She let out a deep sigh and ran her hand through her hair, unusually irritated by its customary stickiness. 

_That's it,_ she thought viciously, _ tomorrow he gets shampooed whether he likes it or not._

Her heart and her head were both pounding, for different reasons. She decided that it would be pointless to even attempt to sleep now; she might as well try to walk off some of the tension. It wasn't as if the sight of Professor Snape prowling the corridors would even twitch a suspicious eyebrow. 

By the time she got to the Arithmancy corridor she was thoroughly annoyed. Annoyed at the fact that Snape hadn't warned her about this part of his job. Annoyed that he hadn't told her that an attack was imminent. Annoyed and frightened by her sudden fall out of character. Annoyed and frustrated at her helplessness in the face of Alice's distress, choosing to conveniently ignore the fact that the _Head Girl_ would have been just as powerless to change the situation as the _Head of Slytherin_. She rounded a corner and stopped; some sixth sense, presumably belonging to her current body, telling her that she was not alone. Sure enough, as she waited, a wand and then an arm, and then a body - in fact, _three_ bodies to be precise - emerged from thin air. 

_How absolutely bloody typical._

"And just what do you three think you're doing here, at this time of night?" 

Her voice rang down the corridor. Three figures froze and then slowly turned towards her. Ron and Harry, of course.... and _him_. 

_How bloody dare he go gallivanting around the castle with those two after the night that she had had?_

"Well?" she enquired, folding her arms. "I await the explanation with bated breath. For I am sure that _nothing_ less than life threatening peril could have drawn you from your beds in defiance of the curfew. _Especially_ not Miss Granger, our esteemed and respected Head Girl." She shot a poisonous glance in Snape's direction, who, she noted with satisfaction, had the decency to look down, if not actually abashed. 

"We were...," began Harry. 

"We thought...," added Ron. 

They both trailed off. 

"And what about you, Miss Granger? Would you like to add a first person plural verb form to the collection?" 

Snape looked thunderous but said nothing. So be it. She really wasn't in any kind of a mood to humour him. 

"Naturally," she continued, "I have long since ceased to expect any kind of compliance with the rules of this school from you, Mr Potter or you, Mr Weasley, and I can assure you that it is my deepest regret that I cannot bring this latest infraction to the immediate attention of the Headmaster, as he is presently away from the school." _Was it her imagination or did Snape's expression flicker a little at that._ "I don't want to think about what you are doing here...." At this Ron opened his mouth and she held up a hand before he could say anything; Ron really wouldn't recognise a rhetorical statement if it wore an illuminated sign. "Please, Mr Weasley, spare me." Ron subsided mutinously. "Fifty points apiece from Gryffindor." She ignored the bitten off protest from Ron and the flinch from Harry. "And as for you, Miss Granger," she rounded on Snape. "I would have thought that you, at least, would have had the sense to prevent this little escapade. Given your position within this school, I find it inconceivable that you could have entertained this _excursion_ for the smallest moment. I'm sure," she added for good measure, aware that the fury on Snape's face was giving way to something closer to astonishment, "that were our positions to be reversed, you would be the first to condemn such irresponsible behaviour. I find it to be highly unbecoming of the Head Girl to be seen to be condoning this kind of conduct. Seventy points from Gryffindor." 

The boys choked. Even Snape blinked. At that moment Hermione really didn't care. She'd had to tell a student that her father might be dead, her best friends couldn't even see when she wasn't herself and Snape was siding with them. 

"Get back to your dormitories," she ended. As they moved away from her, she had a second thought. "Not you, Miss Granger. I have another matter to discuss with you." 

She heard a sub-vocal mutter from Ron Weasley that she chose to ignore, and noted that Harry laid a reassuring hand on Snape's arm, squeezing gently. Then they were gone, out of sight around a corner, and she was left facing Snape who had lost a great deal of his earlier submissive demeanour. 

"Well?" he said, irritably. "Is there any chance that you intend to explain that little temper tantrum?" 

"Do I need to?" she returned waspishly. "You've never bothered to explain yours." 

He sighed theatrically. 

"I assume that _I_ do have a reason for behaving like a child that has broken its favourite toy?" It wasn't the old Snape, but it was close enough to activate what was left of Hermione's _respect for teachers_ instinct. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" she hissed. 

"Tell you what?" His puzzlement seemed genuine enough. 

"About the attack?" 

"Attack?" His voice was suddenly sharp and urgent. "What attack?" 

She was about to snap at him, and then wondered if he really hadn't known about it. 

"There was a Death Eater attack tonight," she informed him wearily. "The Lacock family." 

Briefly, she outlined the sequence of events as she knew them. She only tangentially mentioned comforting Alice in his office. He didn't appear to pick up on it. His face was grim when she finished. 

"I didn't know that there was due to be an attack," he said eventually. "Voldemort doesn't tell every one of us everything. He likes to ensure that no one has the full picture." She must have looked sceptical, for he glared at her. "I would have warned you otherwise, girl," he said harshly, although she sensed that the harshness was not particularly directed at her. "I suppose that's why Albus is away," he added to the air. His worry was clearly apparent on his face, even masked by her more pliable features. 

She felt a flash of shame at her earlier outburst and her blithe thoughts about how easy it was to be Snape. 

"I don't know for certain," she said. "Professor McGonagall only said that he was called to the Ministry." 

Snape nodded. 

"There's nothing more we can do tonight," he said eventually. Hermione wanted to protest but knew that he was right. Not that she expected to sleep until Dumbledore was back. And possibly not even then. 

"Yes," she said absently. "You may as well go back to your dormitory. I'll let you know in the morning if there's any news." 

She had turned away from him, heading back towards her rooms, so she missed the sudden quirk of his eyebrow at his rather peremptory dismissal. 

So she missed a fine opportunity to be heartened by her relapse back into character. 


	20. Avon Calling

**The Fire and the Rose Part 20**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want email notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Snape knocked on the dormitory door with his foot, thumping the wood with the toe of the black leather ankle boots that he'd found lurking under Hermione's bed when he went hunting for more copies of Cosmo - he hadn't found more magazines, but the boots had been interesting. Something like a cross between motorcycle boots and western boots; thick and practical, and much better for the back than the heeled court shoes that Hermione had had neatly stored in her room. He only wished he'd found them earlier; with jeans and a sweater, he had felt almost normal for all of five minutes when he first tried them on. Then he'd looked in a mirror and realised just how snug-fitting the sweater was. 

Nonetheless, he had deliveries to make - the trade in cosmetic potions would ensure that Hermione's account at Gringotts was a touch healthier by the end of this term. He knocked on the dormitory door again with his foot, holding the potions bottles carefully in his arms. 

"Coming," came a yell from inside, "patience, just a minute!" 

Patience was not one of his most prominent virtues - or, it hadn't been. Six months incarceration in a body not his own was teaching him rather a lot, patience included. It had taught him some extra-curricular lessons he hadn't anticipated as well, but he wasn't going to think about those. Not until evening, anyway. 

He became aware, abruptly, of a figure lurking nearby and spun round. A small girl stood nervously just in the shadows; she was familiar and Snape searched his memory to recall her - she was the sort of person easily overlooked. Alice Lacock. She had come to him for counselling a couple of times, and he had suspecting that all she really wanted was for someone to listen to her ramble - she certainly hadn't said anything concrete. Such sessions went a long way to ensuring that he frankly loathed being Head Girl. 

"Can I help you?" he asked. He held back, remembering just in time that he didn't have the luxury of being Snape - being irritated with her would help neither of them and, in any case, she probably had more right than he did to be here in the Slytherin girls' dormitories. The Head Girl could, of course, enter any of the House areas but on the whole it was a power more observed in theory than practice; right now, though, it was extremely useful in getting the last of these bottles out of the laboratories in the dungeons. Hermione appeared not to have noticed what he was up to; Snape wasn't sure whether to be worried at her apparent lack of observation - she must have noticed the smell, if nothing else. Floral potions were not something that the dungeons experienced on a regular basis. 

The girl hesitated, then spoke. 

"I just wanted to say thank you - your advice last time we met helped me a lot, especially over the last few days." 

Snape almost dropped the bottles in shock; her parents. How the hell could he have forgotten her parents? For a frantic moment he wondered whether there was some long term effect of the Longbottom Wonder Lotion that would cause senility - then sense reasserted itself and he shook his head. The child was not memorable, and he had barely associated her with the concept of the student whose parents had been attacked. She went out of her way to avoid being noticed, or so it seemed. She had been successful, if that was her intention. 

"I'm glad to have helped," he replied more formally. Some response was surely necessary, but anything more was cut off by her rush of speech. 

"It helped a lot," she repeated, "and I wanted to tell you that my father's been found! The Aur-aurors," she stumbled over the word, "found him. The Headmaster told me just now, I was coming to tell my friends but then I saw you and I thought I'd tell you. I told Professor Snape, too, and he was really sweet." Snape wondered whether the evening's shocks would actually come to an end. Since when had he been sweet? What had the Granger girl been saying? 

"He's been so good to me, I don't know why everyone has been so mean about him. He's wonderful." 

With that particular bombshell, she turned and half-ran for her dormitory, a final "thanks" tossed over her shoulder as she went. Snape stared after her, barely aware of the door next to him opening at last. He needed to have a sharp and pointed conversation with Hermione Granger, and he needed to have it soon. 

"Oooh, thanks Granger," came a voice next to him, and the bottles were lifted from his arms. "Oh wow, this smells delish - Granger, you're a star. But if you tell anyone I said so, your name will be lower than mud. Understand?" 

He understood. Then again, it would be hard not to - Millicent Bulstrode had never been particularly subtle. He simply nodded and muttered, "let me know when you need more," and turned to leave for the relative sanctuary of Gryffindor Tower. The House of Slytherin was not a welcome place for him; he hurried through the corridors and avoided the jeers thrown his way as he sped through the common room. It was ... interesting to observe, though. He saw here a side of Slytherin that he had suspected still existed but had not seen - or not chosen to see - in recent years. It needed to be dealt with; and dealt with subtly. Too overt a move would tip his hand and destroy far more than it could acheive. The cosmetics were useful start, though, even with Bulstrode's charming comments. For all her words, she still saw the value in a product of another House - even if that House was Gryffindor. 

Snape headed for the dungeons; all was silent as he let himself in, and a quick search of the rooms found no-one in residence. Picking up a couple of books that he had planned to use for research, he left through the classroom and wandered back upstairs, wondering where Hermione was. He definitely needed to talk to her. If she had been Summoned, Dumbledore would undoubtedly have found a way to let him know. Surely he would have let him know ... 

The various and rather disturbing thoughts of the evening tumbled through his mind as he walked purposefully up through the staircases and corridors to the Gryffindor common room. The Fat Lady murmured "good evening" to him and opened as he absent-mindedly recited the current password - "omnia vincit amor", chosen in a fit of lust by one of the sixth-years at the recent prefects' meeting. 

He still hadn't resolved anything in his mind when his arm was caught; he looked sharply backwards, abandoning his increasingly bitter musings about precisely what Hermione had been saying to the Lacock girl to make her think him "wonderful". The very idea made his lip curl. 

"I don't know what happened to make you look that way, and I don't want to know. You're coming with us, anyway - we've got plans for you, you'll feel a lot better afterwards." 

Lavender Brown had tucked his arm through hers and was leading him towards the dormitories' staircase, with Parvati coming along behind them. 

"I don't quite understand ..." The confusion was real, but the apparent hesitation in his voice was not. Still, it seemed to lend an authentic note because the two girls laughed - kindly, but a laugh all the same. 

"We owe you a favour - a _big_ favour," said Parvati. "Those potions are stunning!" 

"Actually," said Snape, thinking quickly, "I think I owe _you_ the favour - do you know how many orders I've had thanks to you?" The apparent pleasure and awe in his voice was a masterpiece of acting; the reality was more like profound annoyance, since the potions took time to make. He refused to address the kernel of pleasure that lay below that annoyance, pleasure at the apparent acceptance and respect that he was garnering. It would all benefit Hermione, after all, and he refused to consider that he was happy about such a thing. 

"Uh-uh," Lavender was shaking her head. "You're not getting out of this one - an eye for an eye and all that." Now Snape was worried; her next words made him terrified. "The Yule Ball is coming up soon, and I'm _not_ going to do your make-up for you this year - you have to learn to do it yourself. That natural thing you've developed over the last couple of years just isn't good enough any more; the way your hair and skin is looking, you've got to take advantage of it." 

Parvati took over the horror story. 

"So, as a thanks for the potions, we thought we'd give you a makeover - a proper one, and teach you what we're doing at the same time. We thought we'd do the whole thing, you know, exfoliating, waxing, everything. Make a session of it - and we know you have nothing to do this afternoon." 

Snape didn't want to know why they thought he had nothing to do - he could think of plenty of things to do. In fact, almost anything that didn't involve exfoliation and waxing. He had a reasonable idea of what was involved in the latter, thanks to Cosmo, and he knew full well that he wanted nothing to do with it. He didn't want much to do with the Yule Ball, either, and he suspected that he was getting out of neither. 

-- 

Evening found him in the dungeons again, the door opening easily to him. Heat poured from the room, with light slipping through the opening. Hermione was back. She looked up from an experiment as he entered, and her eyebrows rose. 

"What happened to you?" 

"Miss Brown and Miss Patil 'happened' to me, Miss Granger. I believe the phenomenon is called 'a girlie afternoon'. I can't say I'm in a hurry to repeat the experience." 

Hermione's eyebrows rose higher still. 

"And you stayed in one place long enough to allow them to put you through that? You must be slipping - I always managed to evade them." 

"They wouldn't take no for an answer. They seemed to think that they owed me a favour. Personally," he bit out, "I think they owe me even more of a favour." 

"So why do they owe you a favour in the first place?" asked Hermione, settling a ladle on the workbench and turning to watch him fully, curiosity evident in her features. 

Snape sighed and recounted the small business sideline that her fellow students believed she had set up. Hermione nodded at the appropriate moments, but remained silent as he spoke. 

"Hmm. Well, you'd better teach me how to make the things as well. It does look like they work - or is all that the result of the 'girlie afternoon'?" 

Snape thought she was teasing, but on the whole was disinclined to find out. He must have scowled at the thought of the afternoon, though, because Hermione picked up on it. 

"What did they do to you - you don't look impressed with it." 

"Have _you_ ever had your legs waxed, Miss Granger?" he asked. His voice had never been so acid-etched, even in his own body. 

Hermione's response was to laugh until she almost cried; a disconcerting sound, rich and full. He hadn't known he could laugh like that. 


	21. Once More With Feeling

**The Fire and the Rose Part 21**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Anyone who had been passing by the dungeons at that moment would have been treated to one of the rarer sights in the history of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; namely Severus Snape, bent nearly double, propping himself up on a workbench and roaring with laughter. Had anyone subsequently recounted this tale they would have been immediately shipped to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries by concerned relatives who wanted to ensure that their demonstrably deranged loved one did not pose any further risk to the community. 

Eventually, Hermione regained enough control over herself to straighten up, still holding her aching ribs. 

I needed a good laugh, she thought, after everything that's happened. 

Snape, however, did not seem to share her mirth; or if he did, he was doing an exceptional job of disguising it. In fact he was still looking distinctly cross. Surely, that couldn't all be down to the afternoon's experiences? 

"Look," she said, struggling to contain her merriment, "I'm sorry you didn't get away quickly enough, but it can't have been that bad." She shrugged. "Having your legs waxed doesn't hurt _that_ much and I know that Lavender and Parvati can be a bit overwhelming at times but they don't really mean any harm by it...." 

She trailed off. His face wasn't getting any happier. 

"The personal grooming talents of Miss Patil and Miss Brown were not the only discoveries I made this afternoon." 

She composed her face into something like seriousness and folded her arms, waiting for him to get to the point and still surreptitiously biting her lip to prevent her mouth from twitching. 

"This afternoon," he continued in acid tones, "I discovered what one particular pupil at this school thinks of me." 

She racked her brains. _Ron? Harry?_ Well they didn't like him, but that should hardly have been a surprise of any magnitude to him. 

"This afternoon," he repeated, "I heard myself described as 'sweet' and 'wonderful' by Miss Lacock - a Slytherin, no less." 

_Ah._

Her desire to giggle faded; she should have known that that impulse of sympathy would come back to haunt her. 

"Well, what was I supposed to do?" she said, a little defensively. "The poor girl had just had her family attacked by Death Eaters." 

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose in something that might have been irritation or might have been weariness. 

"Miss Granger, how many times do I have to tell you that you are not _playing_ at my life. How long do you think it will take for the news that I am 'sweet' to get back to Voldemort or his followers. However you feel about it, you cannot go about being _sympathetic_ to students whenever you feel like it." 

Hermione fought the urge to justify herself like a student. She met his angry gaze squarely. 

"I'm sorry," she said, as calmly as she could. "I've never had to do anything like that before and I didn't know what to do. The Headmaster wasn't here, and I didn't think that I could be seen running to the _Head Girl_ for advice. I did the best I could." 

To her astonishment the expected caustic retort didn't come. 

"Suppose you tell me _exactly_ what happened between you and Miss Lacock. That way I can decide what needs to be done about it." 

Hermione recounted the details of her conversation with Minerva McGonagall and her subsequent meeting with Alice Lacock in Snape's office. When she had finished, she wrinkled her brow, trying to put together some disconnected pieces of information. 

"Alice came to me on a few occasions for counselling - well, for more of a chat, I think - she never truly told me what was going on." She thought a bit more. "I always got the impression that it was some kind of boyfriend trouble, but she didn't go into details...." 

From the look of abject horror on Snape's face, it was clear that he had put two and two together at about the same time that Hermione had. She bit her lip again, even more fiercely. She doubted that another explosion of laughter would help the situation. 

"She's been to see me as well," he breathed in an appalled tone, "but I didn't really listen to what she was saying. Oh Gods, this can't be true...." 

"I'm afraid it is," said Hermione, her voice wobbling slightly with the effort of controlling it. "I think that our Miss Lacock has had a crush on you for a _long_ time, Professor. I don't think that I had very much to do with it." 

He glared. 

"It's not funny," he snapped. 

She shook her head. 

"No," she agreed, with manifest insincerity, feeling tears pricking at her eyes "Although," she couldn't resist adding, "Madam Hooch has been making some very... erm... _playful_ suggestions since the Halloween Ball...." She let the notion hang in the air. 

His scowl deepened. 

"Just remember, Miss Granger," he hissed, clearly forgetting that it sounded nowhere near as effective in her voice, "there _will_ come a time when I can give you detentions again." 

She nodded, not able to trust herself to speak. Who would have thought that there would ever some a time when the threat of detention from Professor Snape would reduce her to tears of laughter. 

His expression was still baleful, but she could have sworn that she saw a flash of something else cross his face; something that contained the barest hint of self-mockery, perhaps?. 

"Now, if you've quite finished undermining my authority, Hermione, maybe we could move on to the next of the looming crises in our joint lives." 

The tone was sarcastic, but there was definitely an undercurrent of irony there, even a vestigial sense of humour. And he was using her given name again. Which meant that he was calming down. He wasn't so bad, she reflected, once you got the hang of his changing moods. 

"Well," she said after a pause, "I don't think there's anything truly awful about to happen. Unless you count the Yule Ball." 

He shuddered; she sympathised. After all, he had just spent an afternoon with the Makeover Queens of Gryffindor. And formal dress functions were the moments that Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were born for. 

"Thank you for reminding me that we need to do something about your ballroom dancing skills. Or more precisely, your lack thereof." 

It was her turn to shudder. She suspected that he would use the opportunity to revenge himself for the twin insults of unrequited teenage passion and non-consensual depilation. 

"In the meantime," he continued smoothly, "you wanted to learn some more about potions making?" 

-- 

Hermione managed to avoid dance class until the day before the Yule Ball. 

She left the Great Hall as soon as she decently could after dinner and fled back to Snape's rooms, to seat herself at the end of the large table that she had appropriated for herself, and surround herself with a protective barrier of books and homework. She hoped desperately that Snape would simply leave her to her occupations and busy himself with his potions. She couldn't imagine for one minute that he would have the smallest interest in teaching her to dance, and would even welcome the reprieve. 

One look at his slightly amused face when he walked into the room told her that she was destined to be disappointed. 

"I might be more impressed," he said tartly, "had I not actually been in the classrooms when all of these assignments were given out. Thus, I know that at least _two_ of these," he gestured at the pile of books, "are supposed to be done over the holidays." 

She sighed. 

"Is this really necessary? I can simply leave quickly, and spend the evening patrolling the grounds or something." 

"Yes it is really necessary, Hermione. Whilst I avoid dancing wherever possible, I am at least conversant with the basic steps. If you are called upon to dance again, you must be more competent than you were on the last occasion." 

Somehow she didn't think that that was likely to be achieved any time soon. 

He stood back waiting for her. When she didn't immediately move he said rather acidly: 

"Shall we begin? I should add that it is customary for the man to ask the woman to dance, and not the other way round." 

Reluctantly, she got up and moved towards him. As she got clear of the table, he took his wand out and gestured with it. The furniture moved back towards the edges of the room. Hermione jumped a little at that. 

"Dancing means _moving about_." he pointed out. "Which means the need for space." 

She fought not to flush at that. 

"Very well," he said. "Now come here." 

Nervously, she approached and stopped at a safe distance. Something that had been reasonably easy to do in the middle of the dance floor, under the none too subtle direction of Albus Dumbledore, became nearly impossible in the privacy of Snape's rooms, with no pressing outside influences to drive it. 

He took a step towards her, until he was so close that she was aware of the faint floral perfume surrounding him; she recognised some of the potions that he had taught her to make - "her" thriving beauty business - what on Earth would happen if the truth about that came out, she wondered? Unbidden came the vision of a whole line of cosmetics marketed under the _House of Snape_ label - not to mention the cut-throat competition to be This Year's _Face of Snape_. It all struck her as faintly ludicrous. It also made her relax fractionally. 

_How bad could this be?_

"Place your right hand just below my shoulder blade," he instructed her, "and hold up your left arm." 

She obeyed tentatively, and found herself holding Snape - well, herself - closely enough to be aware of the warmth of his body, the weight of his hand resting on her right arm, fingers curled over her shoulder and the rise and fall of his chest as he spoke, guiding, explaining. He spoke a word and the room was filled with a medium tempo Muggle swing tune; _Moonlight Serenade_ she identified, in surprise. Then he was describing the steps, half pulling her with him as he attempted to show her the correct moves. 

She was concentrating so hard that she must have begun to hum under her breath, for he asked with a tinge of derision: 

"You have a comment to make on the music?" 

"I've just never thought of you as a Glenn Miller fan." 

He snorted. 

"I imagine that it is possible to dance properly to wizard music, but I've never mastered the skill." 

"I like it," she added, referring to the music playing. "It was a favourite of my grandmother's." 

"Thank you, Miss Granger. I now feel suitably old." 

His voice held the inflection that she was beginning to interpret as his sense of humour. The near-joke distracted her enough to lose concentration and she stood on his foot, making him yelp suddenly. 

"Sorry," she said contritely. 

"Hermione," he said, in exasperation. "This really is not difficult. It simply requires you to be able to count to four. It is considerably _less_ difficult that learning the rules of Quidditch, and you managed to do that adequately _and_ to sufficiently master the art of flying as I recall. 

"Sorry," she mumbled again. "I've never been any good at dancing." 

"Well, there's no good reason why that I can see. You are blessed with the ability to count, perfectly functional hearing, normal co-ordination and a fair sense of balance. _My_ body knows how to do this, but _your_ mind is getting in the way again. If you would just relax and stop _trying_ so hard, I believe that you would find it a great deal easier. And for Merlin's sake, don't mumble." 

This was worse than being six years old and watching the looks of amused pity on the faces of the mothers who had managed to give birth to more physically graceful creatures than she. 

"Look," she said striving for resigned cheerfulness, "everyone has things that they just _can't_ do. With me, it's dancing. I read books and study. Other people dance." She shrugged. "Why don't we just write this off as a lost cause?" 

He just looked at her and she didn't think that there was annoyance in his eyes; no, it was something closer to... _understanding_? And then it was gone. 

"I'm going to assume that I didn't hear you say that, Miss Granger. I assume that someone at some time told you that you were unable to dance, and for some extraordinary reason you elected to believe them." He shrugged in his turn. "Now, I suggest that you regain some of your annoying persistence, and let's try this again." 

Seething with irritation, all thoughts of understanding thoroughly banished, she stood up. This time she succeeded in completing the dance without stepping on him, albeit a little stiffly. 

"Well done, Miss Granger," was the ironic comment. "I think that if we try it one more time, with a little less fury, we might be able to stop for the evening." 

Somewhere in that was a compliment, she realised She could have laughed at the irony of waiting six and a half years for recognition from Snape and finally getting it in the context of ballroom dancing. 

-- 

In the end Snape insisted on several more times before he pronounced himself satisfied, and towards the end Hermione was almost enjoying it, despite her aching feet and the rather edged commentary from her partner. She wondered what it would be like to dance with Snape when he was... well, himself. She suspected that, for one thing, he was having a hard time remembering not to lead. Finally, he called a halt to the session and she automatically went over to the fire to begin making tea. 

She was stopped by Snape's voice. 

"Hermione, you suggested to me this evening that everyone has skills that they are unable to acquire for whatever reason." She blinked a little. "I would venture to suggest that tea-making might also be placed on your list of such skills." 

She stood back from the fire. His voice had had little true malice in it; she suspected another joke of sorts. 

"Be my guest," she said, conscious of the irony of using the phrase in his own rooms. 

He caught it as well, for he simply gave her what she was beginning to consider as One Of His Looks. 

She sat back in one of the deep leather armchairs, as he proceeded to make the tea, lecturing her as if it were a demonstration potion. 

"Best practice suggests the use 2g of tea - to a margin of error of plus or minus 2% - for every 100ml of water. It must be remembered that tea flavour and appearance will be affected by the hardness of the water used." He paused to lift the kettle from the fire. "The pot must be filled to within 4-6mm of the brim with freshly boiling water. After the lid has been placed on top, the pot must be left to brew for precisely six minutes." Carefully placing the now full pot back on the hearth, he added, "milk should be added at a ratio of 1.75ml of milk for every 100ml of tea. The pot should be lifted with the lid held in place, then "pour tea through the infused leaves into the cup". He fixed Hermione with a glare. "It goes without saying that one should always pour in the tea on top of the milk to prevent scalding the milk." 

She nodded meekly, as he imparted this information, resisting the urge to remove her boots and massage her feet, which seemed to have become miraculously _more_ painful now that they no longer needed to bear her weight. 

As he busied himself, she was struck once more by the odd notion of anyone having a crush on Professor Snape. Before this had happened she would have considered the idea laughable at best. And now - now, she knew the man a great deal better - in fact, in quite intimate detail when you thought about it. The sight of his muscular naked body was now familiar to her; the responses of his body to... stimulation... pleasure... were well known to her as well. But she thought of _his_ body as _her_ body. Didn't she? She tried to imagine how she would react to it as a stranger... as a woman. 

And felt a slight tightening in the region of her balls. 

Hastily, she turned her thoughts to other things, to the cup of tea that was being proffered. 

Plainly, precisely six minutes had now elapsed. 

It was amazing how six minutes could change your view of the world. 

_A/N: The instructions on how to make tea may be found in that most arcane of rare Potions works - the British Standards Institute's _BS 6008: Method for the Preparation of a Liquor of Tea for Use in Sensory Tests_ reference BS-6008:1980/ISO-3103:1980. Who says that fanfiction can't be educational :) Thanks to Coral for finding it and emailing it to me._


	22. Men Make Clothes For The Women They'd Li...

**The Fire and the Rose Part 22**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Clothes. Severus Snape had an appreciation for good clothes but, on the whole, was not particularly concerned with them. Three months in a female body hadn't done very much to change his attitude this respect. Hermione had a functional wardrobe which, whilst it suited her, didn't require much in the way of choices and musing to pull together a set of clothes for the day. Not as extremely functional as his own day-to-day wardrobe, but not particularly different to the small collection he had acquired over the years for holidays and _escapes_. 

Escape. 

The idea appealed enormously; he hadn't left the school since the start of term, one way and another. Trips to Hogsmeade had been curtailed in favour of the continued experimentation on Longbottom's Ego Exchanging Elixir; the experimentation was slow but the mandrakes, which would provide a more certain cure, were developing on schedule and Snape was reasonably certain that he and Hermione were now more than halfway through their rather bizarre exchange trip. Nonetheless, he was curious to know what it was that Longbottom had managed to achieve; it could perhaps be a useful potion to have in the arsenal. 

_How_ Longbottom had managed to produce anything useful was still bemusing; and coaching the boy through basic potions at least once a week in the Gryffindor common room had done nothing to change Snape's view of him. He was terrified in Potions lessons, of course, but Snape could find no sympathy for him; he would have to deal with worse once he had left school, better that he learnt now that people were not universally pleasant. All the same, Snape wondered just how Longbottom had failed to develop any kind of carapace against the injustices of life in the last seven years. 

More interesting still was Hermione's reaction to the boy - he could detect no difference in her treatment of Longbottom compared to his own; that was, of course, the way it should be if they were to avoid Malfoy junior running home to his father with tales that they would rather were not told. All the same, he thought she seemed to enjoy bullying the class; he was almost used to receiving his own treatment now but he still found it fascinating. 

He wished he could say the same for the rest of his classes. Things had settled down somewhat - the faculty no longer regarded him with quite the concern that they had tried to conceal in early October, when he was still trying to regain the skills he had ignored since NEWTs - and Hermione no longer winced when he practised Transfigurations in the potions classroom between experiments. Nonetheless, it was tedious and he whiled away the classes on autopilot, scribbling notes in Hermione's handwriting and letting his mind wander. Hermione's tendency to hand-waving and over-eagerness had muted itself over the years, so no-one seemed to notice that the Head Girl was not first to react with an answer at all times. He was free to escape the class in his mind and follow his thoughts. 

Escape. 

Hermione had taken his body and his clothes to London; it was absurb that she could escape and he could not. He chose to ignore her comment about the way he looked in Armani ... then again, maybe he shouldn't. A smile uncurled across his face and, had anyone been there to see, they might have remarked that the Head Girl had a fleeting air of mischievous glee about her. Most uncharacteristic - except that Snape was beginning to think that it wasn't at all uncharacteristic of Hermione. She had a talent for comments that shot and arced to their target with an accuracy that stung almost as much as it amused. There was definite potential there; all it needed was encouragement. 

Meanwhile, back to the Armani. She thought he looked good in Armani ... well, that had possbilities for amusement, bringing him back to the open cupboard in front of him. The Yule Ball would begin in an hour, and the Head Girl needed to be present and correct; and that would mean some sort of dress. 

Hermione had dresses; not many, but they were there. Snape thought they were probably left over from earlier years and earlier tastes, as they certainly didn't suit the woman he had come to know in scores of evenings of potions brewing, mutual coaching, quidditch panics and general discussion. He had no intention of wearing them this evening, certainly. He couldn't recall having had any particular desire to dress in women's clothing (wizarding robes generally allowed those with that particular interest to do so without anyone particularly noticing, anyway), and would frankly rather be in his own body with his own clothes but - in the absence of miracles - he decided he would make the best of what he had to deal with. 

That meant the pink and satin needed to go. Fine for a child, but Hermione's body was not that of a child; not a thought he chose to dwell on, but he could hardly think otherwise given the responses he knew that body was perfectly and readily capable of. He really would miss those responses ... 

But none of that would get him something he was prepared to wear for this evening. He looked critically at the clothes again, then suddenly ignored the dresses in favour of a cardigan and a pair of jeans. Laying them on the bed, he picked up his wand and concentrated. Time to find out whether the Transfiguration lessons from Hermione and McGonagall had had any practical effect. 

The clothes had just been transfigured when a knock came at the door; if it was Harry or Ron, he was going to disembowel them. Or something similar, anyway. He had not been able to dissuade the boys from coming to escort him down to the Hall, but he was damned if he was going to suffer their presence any longer than he had to. 

"Yes?" he snapped, opening the door. Lavender and Parvati stood outside, arms full of fabric, looking slightly startled at the abrupt greeting. He sighed inwardly, and opened the door a little wider. 

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "I thought it was Harry and Ron." 

Lavender and Parvati grinned at that. "Yeah, last thing you want is those two butting in." 

Never a truer word spoken, Miss Brown, thought Snape. However, he simply smiled and nodded to them. "Can I ... help?" he asked, curious as to why they were standing outside his rooms. He would have thought them to be in full frenzy, preparing for the Ball - they had been eager enough to force him through pre-preparations a day ago. They had clearly been preparing - hair and cosmetics certainly seemed to have been applied in full party manner - but they were still in school robes. Given their last encounter, he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to know what they had in mind. 

"Yup," said Parvati as they pushed past him. "You can give us somewhere to hide while we finish getting dressed. The juniors keep bursting in to see how we're doing, and we're getting fed up with it." 

"And we figured no-one would burst in on you," added Lavender. 

Snape contented himself with raising an eyebrow at that; pointing out the irony in that statement, given that they had just "burst in on him", would probably take so much time that they would miss the Ball. Whilst he personally wouldn't be particularly concerned at that, he thought the energy would be more profitably used elsewhere. Including in making sure that they didn't use this as another opportunity to inflict pain. 

A squeal behind him made him jump as he shut the door. 

"Oooh, Hermione, it's _gorgeous_, where did you get it?" The Barbies were in residence. Snape sighed again, summoned a smile and dragged out a cliche. 

"That old thing? I've had it for years," he murmured. It was all he could do not to laugh at the puzzled expressions on their faces; but they were obviously not in the mood to take much notice of puzzles as they dumped their own clothes on the bed and started to undress. 

Snape suddenly got rather uncomfortable. He was familiar enough with Hermione's body - probably rather more familiar than she would be impressed by - but the idea of looking at those two undressing was not something he wanted to deal with. He scooped up his own clothes and headed for the bathroom; he reasoned that Hermione was modest enough not for his retreat not to spark much curiosity. 

He didn't quite make it in time to avoid seeing Miss Brown's rather abundant charms on display, though. The sight left him curiously unmoved, and he gazed thoughtfully in the mirror at his reflection - not his own reflection - as he undressed and wondered at the difference. _This_ was enough to send shivers of anticipation through him, as his mind took in the sight of Hermione's body. Enough to stir ideas that he damped down again rapidly. And yet ... and yet ... Lavender Brown had made no impression. 

He whirled away from the mirror and dressed rapidly. Enough time to think about that later. Much later. In fact, never. 

He could only loiter in the bathroom for so long, no matter how difficult he still found cosmetics - make-up was still something he personally considered to be almost Dark magic and viewed with almost as much suspicion as if it were Dark. The daily swipe of mascara and gloss he had mastered; yesterday's session had given him an unwilling education in the joys of cosmetic charms but knowing how to do something was not the same as knowing what to do with it. 

He opened the door slowly, hoping the girls were at least vaguely clothed. They were; rather predictably dressed in standard cocktail dresses - at least they had enough sense not to wear the ungainly ball-dresses that appealed to so many. He looked down, and wondered just how they planned to dance in those spikes that they would undoubtedly call shoes. 

"Aren't you doing anything to your hair?" asked Parvati, as she spotted Snape. 

"Won't this do?" he asked. He had brushed it out, the conditioner lending it enough weight to hand reasonably straight and smooth. What else was he supposed to do with it? Snape viewed the girls' hair with some alarm - twisted and twirled, and not at all like anything he'd ever seen Hermione wear. Not that he could really remember her doing anything with her hair anyway. It wasn't something he had paid any attention to. 

"Doesn't go with the clothes," said Lavender as she got up from the bed and walked over. Circling Snape she hmm'd softly under her breath, then nodded decisively. "Up. It's got to go up." 

Snape's eyebrows certainly went up. "And what, exactly, do you mean by _up_?" he asked suspiciously. 

"Relax, Hermione. Nothing outrageous, that wouldn't suit you at all - look, trust us. We didn't do the glitter thing with the makeup on you, did we?" 

Thank Merlin for small mercies. 

Some work with a brush and a few charms later, he looked in the mirror again. Grudgingly, he admitted that whatever they had done, it worked well with the clothes. Sleek and tidy, and ... well, he wasn't quite sure what they had done with it, but it worked. 

"Pity you can't summon up some charms to avoid waxing as well," he said drily, making sure they saw a smile on his face. The girls laughed. 

"Haven't found anything that works so far - at least, not that lasts as long. Standard shaving spells aren't a lot of use." 

Snape nodded absently; he should have remembered that. The inefficacy of the spells was the main reason he used a cutthroat. Maybe a potion, though ... he was sure he'd read something in one of Hermione's Muggle magazines about a way of removing hair with something like a potion. On second thoughts, maybe not. He had quite enough orders for skincare as it was. 

Going down in history as the man who invented a depilatory potion was _not_ exactly what he had worked these many years for. 

Then again, it was probably a better way to be remembered than any he had earned so far. 

An hour later, Snape winced at the over-decoration in the Hall. The Headmaster somehow always managed to exceed the previous year's over-decoration. The simplicity of decorated trees that graced the space for the rest of the season was overwhelmed by the cascades of jewelled icicles and glittering baubles that spread across the Hall like iridescent foam. The tables were gone; tea had been served in the common rooms, and supper would be served much later. Most of the students were already present, clearly - the room was already full of the chattering and swooping of adolescent conversation. 

He looked around, searching for a familiar tall, black-clad, figure. Surely she didn't think she was going avoid the Ball altogether? Dumbledore would never allow that - and even if he did, Snape had no intention of letting Hermione get out of it. No point in wasting dancing lessons, after all ... 

As if the thought had conjured her, a low silky voice behind him murmured quietly, just audible in the melee around. 

"Very nice. I wish I had your taste." 

There was a subtle bite to the comment, and Snape wondered whether she was commenting on the clothes or whether she was playing to an audience. He looked over his shoulder. She was alone. Why the sarcasm, then? Perhaps she didn't like the clothes. He tested the theory. 

"You said Armani suited me. I thought perhaps it might work in this incarnation as well as that," he replied, his voice equally quiet as he surveyed the room. The last thing he wanted was to be seen talking to Hermione - that would be decidedly out of character for both of them. 

"It does." 

He had transfigured the jeans and cardigan into something he had seen in one of her magazines; Armani, of course. A fitted hip-length black velvet jacket with a Nehru collar, and a pair of loose flowing trousers in silk that shimmered with a palatte of muted colours. The upswept hair and low-heeled thin-strapped sandals that Parvati had transfigured for him completed the look; heels were definitely not something he wanted to deal with. The effect, he realised suddenly, made him stand out rather more than he had intended among the standard robes, meringues and little black dresses that marked the stages of adolescence in female students. It marked him as an adult, not as a child; the restraint was, fortunately, characteristic of the Head Girl even if the elegance was more characteristic of the Potions Master - not that any of the students or many of the faculty were likely to recognise him as elegant. 

"It does." Hermione had repeated the quiet comment, this time with a sigh. "Why the hell can't I pick clothes like that?" 

Snape debated letting the comment pass but a sharp sense of needing to comfort her forced a reply. 

"I'm sure you will, given time. I have twenty years more experience, remember." 

"Yes, but you're a man," and her response was rather acid. Snape almost laughed at the indignation in every syllable; she was overlooking the obvious, though. "And so is Armani," he pointed out. "Please don't tell me you will refuse to wear clothes designed by a man - that would be a waste." 

It was odd, really, how you could hear silence in a babble of high spirits. But silence was definitely what he heard from Hermione now. She seemed confused, and he supposed she was wondering whether he meant a waste of the clothes or a waste of her figure. He wasn't about to enlighten her; some things needed to remain unsaid, after all. Then he felt the atmosphere shift as she threw off the confusion and pulled herself back to the character she was supposed to be. 

"Rather a waste of time submitting to the leg-waxing, wasn't it?" she murmured as she swept past, now heading for the other side of the room. The amusement in the comment stung almost as much as the waxing had. Still, he had probably deserved that. 


	23. Sometimes You Can't Choose Your Friends ...

**The Fire and the Rose Part 23**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Hermione strode purposefully across the room, concentrating on enjoying the way that the student body parted before her, scrambling to get out of her way, avoiding anything that smacked of eye contact. She preferred to focus on this welcome phenomenon rather than on the more complex task of deconstructing Snape's last comment to her. 

_Please don't tell me you will refuse to wear clothes designed by a man - that would be a waste._

A waste? A waste of what? Surely, he hadn't been referring to her appearence. 

No, he had to have been referring to the clothes. The alternative would have meant that she had just received a _compliment_ from Professor Snape. 

And if that was true... well, if that was true then the rest of the evening presumably held in store Hell freezing over, Sybill Trelawney making an accurate prediction and the Headmaster saying, "You know, I think I may have overdone the decorations a bit this year." 

The whole thing was bemusing to say the least, given that her body was presently under the management of man with rudimentary ideas about personal grooming, vanishingly small social skills and a taste in apparel than ran the whole spectrum of voluminous black robes to... well... voluminous black robes. _And some seriously sharp Muggle clothes,_ a treacherous voice in the back of her mind pointed out. She ordered it to shut up. 

But this man... _Snape_... had somehow managed to visibly improve her appearence and to give her some apparent popularity with her peers through these cosmetics. And now he had started on her wardrobe. 

She suppressed a very girlish desire to sigh. The outfit that he was wearing was unquestionably stunning. She supposed that he must have transfigured it; it hadn't been in her wardbrobe when she had last looked and her bank account certainly didn't run to this season's Armani. Or _any_ season's Armani, come to that. A tiny smile of triumph played across her face. It looked like she had actually succeeded in teaching Professor Snape some useful skills. And, looking on the bright side, by the time she got her body back she might have a wardrobe of impeccably tasteful designer clothes to show for it. 

She had only been half joking when she wished for his eye for clothes. 

_Every cloud truly does have a silver lining_

Or should that be _every silver lining had its cloud_? 

Hermione watched gloomily as Hyacinth Hooch hove into view, her blue and gold robes giving the impression of a naval launch intent on intercepting wrongdoers. The sight managed to completely dispel her burgeoning mood of self-satisfaction. 

Surreptitiously, she looked around, hoping against hope that there were some students misbehaving to give her a legitimate reason for changing direction. Even students behaving blamelessly would furnish some sort of excuse. After all, Snape had always interpreted _reasonable grounds to suspect misconduct_ very liberally when it came to identifying infractions. However, the area around her was a student-free zone; Snape's innate ability to cut a swathe through any gathering had chosen an inopportune moment to begin working against her. 

Hooch was still coming for her; there was no avoiding it. 

"Snape!" The hearty tones made her wince almost as much as the vigorous hand clapped on her shoulder. 

"Hyacinth," she said, hoping that her extreme discomfort would show itself as appropriate reserve. 

From the corner of her vision, she was aware that Dumbledore was making expansive gestures to a group of four or five wizards who appeared to be some sort of musicians. At least, they were carrying instruments so she assumed that they were musicians. 

"Not so quick to be away this evening, eh Snape? Got the taste for dancing have you?" 

She managed a bare smile, aware that none of the responses that immediately sprang to mind would be suitable, even allowing for her current identity. 

To the front of the Great Hall, the group had managed to get themselves into some sort of order, and were beginning to tune up. 

"I am here merely to keep control of the student body," she managed to get out with a struggle. "I have little or no interest in dancing. The evening cannot end soon enough for my taste." 

There you are. That was graceless enough to satisfy Snape and truthful enough to satisfy Hermione. 

"You say that now, but after a few glasses of punch, we'll get you loosened up." Hooch gave her a pointed wink. 

Hermione couldn't think of anything she would like less. 

She took a rather hasty step back. 

"That would be more than unnecessary. Now I, at least, have a job to perform this evening." 

She took another, firmer, step in the opposite direction, and then headed towards... actually it was more _away_ from Hooch than towards anything in particular. 

She was becoming less and less surprised that Snape spent his life in a perpetual bad temper. There were aspects to his existence that would cause even Polyanna to be somewhat out of sorts. Even leaving the Voldemort factor out of the equation. She checked the time. It seemed to be passing with more than usual slowness. 

-- 

It slowed to a complete stop rather later in the evening when the band were warmed up and well into their second set. Hermione had contrived to spend the greater part of her time prowling around outside, rejoicing in the fact that the adolescent tendency to indulge their hormones at every available opportunity - even if said opportunity involved an appreciable risk of hypothermia - kept her distanced from both the predatory looks emanating from Hyacinth Hooch and the distinctly ambiguous sight of Snape dancing with her friends. 

The cause of this temporal stasis was predictable enough, she supposed. It had been far to much to hope for - Snape would say far too _Gryffindor_ of her, she thought sourly - that she would be left to her own devices in peace. 

The night was clear and crisp. She had acclimatised to the chill of the air and was, in fact, rather enjoying the view of the sky, idly revising Snape's last batch of Astronomy notes in her mind - minus the caustic asides about Professor Sinistra's teaching technique - and identifying the various stellar features. She lost herself in quiet contemplation, the focus serving to divert her thoughts from the troubling question of Snape and what he was currently doing to her life. 

Turning towards the north, she located the Great Bear and then moved her gaze upwards to Ursa Minor and the Pole Star with the familiar M of Cassiopeia twinkling off to one side. Moving her attention, she mentally marked out the stars that made up Draco, strung out across the sky like shimmering icy jewels, cliché though that image might be. It was a shame that the boy that bore the name didn't display the same beauty, although he might well rival the constellation for coldness. She had to admit that the rivalry between himself and Harry had been less apparent since their _little chat_. Or less apparent to her, at least. She suspected that he had taken her advice on discretion to heart. And he had been biddable enough in class and in house since then. She had realised fairly early on in this little exercise in job sharing that whilst the Slytherins did not love their Head of House, on the whole they had considerable respect for him. 

That thought led fairly naturally on to Alice and her _infatuation_. Hermione felt her serenity evaporate. She was going to have to deal with that. Let the girl know in no uncertain terms that Professor Snape was not sweet and kind and was a most inappropriate choice of love object. She suspected that there would be no painless way of achieving that. The simplest way of curing Miss Lacock, of course, would be a campaign of outright cruelty. She flinched away from the notion even as she accepted that it was an extremely Snape-ish solution. She closed her eyes. There had to be a way to sort this out which would be acceptably in character for him and not violate her own personal ethics too badly. 

Who would have thought that she would be spending the Yule Ball standing in the grounds of Hogwarts, trying to come up with a humane solution to Professor's Snape's problems with girls. 

As if on cue, her reverie was broken by a female voice. 

"Snape! I thought I'd find you skulking out here. For Merlin's sake get yourself back inside and enjoy yourself for once." 

_Speaking of problems with girls._

Although not even her most devoted admirers would describe Hyacinth Hooch as a girl. And she had obviously consumed the threatened _few glasses of punch_. 

"I thought I made it clear," she said, summoning up her best _Go Away Right Now_ Snape voice, "that I had absolutely no desire to enjoy myself, as you put it, this evening." 

"Nonsense," responded Hooch briskly, "you just need to let your hair down a bit for once." 

She took two steps forward and grasped Hermione's upper arm determinedly. 

Hermione had no desire whatsoever to be hauled bodily back into the Great Hall by a slightly tipsy Quidditch teacher. 

"Kindly let go of me," she snapped. "I am perfectly capable of entering the building without assistance." 

She did at least drop her hold on Hermione's arm, although her hearty, "That's the spirit, Snape," didn't promise that her enthusiasm had been dampened. 

Hermione gloomily returned to the ball in the wake of Hyacinth, feeling psychologically towed, if not physically. Hooch herself still looked vaguely nautical, but more in the sense of a hazard to shipping as she made her way around the clusters of students, weaving a little more than was strictly necessary. Hermione couldn't work out whether it was the effects of the punch, or some attempt at harnessing her _inner rhythm_. 

Hooch, meanwhile, had stopped and turned to Hermione with an arch look on her face. 

"So, what's it to be first, Snape? Punch or dance?" 

Hermione was just about to opt for punch on the basis that it would give her more time to plot an escape and, if the worst came to the worst, it would go some way to deadening the many pains of dancing with Hooch. A quick glance across the room changed her mind. Standing uncomfortably close to the table where McGonagall was guarding the _teacher's_ punch, was an all too famililar expensive outfit, flanked by two equally familiar males. Not only that, but in the next group of students stood a third-year Slytherin girl, gazing soulfully at her with woebegone eyes. 

_Harry, Ron, Snape and Alice Lacock all within a six foot radius. Oh joy unloooked for._

Hooch, meanwhile, was waiting for an answer. 

Hermione fixed her with her best glare. 

"Let's get it over with," she said curtly. 

Hooch grinned broadly and shot a badly concealed glance in the direction of McGonagall. 

You would almost think that she had money riding on this, thought Hermione sourly. As they moved into position on the dance floor she placed her hands on Hooch in the manner demonstrated by Snape the previous evening. Maintaining as much physical distance as she could, whilst still being able to dance, Hermione began to stiffly guide Hooch around the floor. As they turned, she could see that Snape and the boys seemed to have moved, but she got another glimpse of Alice. The expression on the girl's face was more tragic than ever as she fixedly watched the couple on the dance floor. 

_Heavens, was the girl jealous?_

If only she knew that she had nothing to be jealous of.... She gave a grunt in response to a question from Hooch, as an idea suddenly occurred to her. 

"I'm sorry, Hyancinth," she said smoothly, turning her attention to her partner, "I didn't catch that last remark." 

The sudden shift to polite interest was sufficiently unexpected to make Hooch pause. 

"I was saying how lovely Miss Granger looks this evening," she said cautiously. 

"Hmm, yes." 

"We were all a little worried about her at the beginning of the term, but she's doing as well as she ever was and she's really blossomed into a charming young woman. It's such a shame about her flying skills, though." 

"Yes, well, not everyone's a natural on a broomstick." She couldn't resist putting that in. 

"Nonsense. You do well enough, and you hardly ever see daylight, let alone the open air." 

"What a delightful way you have with words, Hyacinth," murmured Hermione blandly. 

"Oh."The other woman seemed oblivious to the undercurrent of irony. "Do you really think so?" 

Hermione sighed inwardly, registering that Snape would have heard what she meant. 

They finished their dance in curiously formal civility. Hooch was obviously nonplussed that Hermione had been paying any attention to her at all; a fact that had clearly put her off her regular game of Snape-baiting. The music came to an end and Hermione managed a firm but courteous farewell, visibly confusing the flying teacher even more. 

As she made her departure from the dance floor she was aware of Alice Lacock rushing out of the Hall. From the expression on her face, she was about to start crying any minute. Hermione was slightly relieved to see that another third year Slytherin was hastily following her out. She was hovering on the periphery of the room, when another voice sounded behind her. 

"Would you care to dance, Professor?" It sounded a little more like a command than a request. 

Snape. It was inevitable that he would turn up sooner or later. 

"I would be charmed, Miss Granger." There. That sounded about as sincere as his invitation. 

They silently took their places on the dance floor. An obliging space cleared about them. The Snape Effect at work again, she thought wryly. 

She took hold of him, much as she had for Hooch, but felt his fingers on her shoulder pulling her close enough so that he could murmur: 

"I assume that that little display had some purpose." 

_Of course. He had followed her dance with Hooch and the departure of Alice._

She nodded. 

"I was wondering how to discourage Alice without simply being horrid to her." She ignored the quirk of his eyebrow at her choice of words. "I noticed that she was watching me dance with Hyacinth... I mean Madam Hooch," he gave a bare shrug at her use of Hooch's given name, "and I thought she was jealous, so I... erm... thought I'd encourage it a bit." 

"So," he said softly and carefully, "now the school will believe that I am involved with Hyacinth Hooch." 

"No," she said quickly, "I don't think so. I don't think that Hya... Madam Hooch is really interested in you. She only behaves like that because she knows that you react to it. When I was quite polite to her, she didn't know what to say." She paused, caught up in her own thoughts. "You really ought to try being nice occasionally, you know." 

"Miss Granger, I thought that we had established that I was not a nice person." 

"Oh no," she said without thinking, "I don't mean that you should actually _be_ nice, just that you should _act_ nice from time to time. At random. For no particular reason. It confuses people. Anyway, if anyone asks...," she didn't want to think about the exact identity of _anyone_ right at the moment, "you can always say that you ony did it to discourage Alice. Which you did. Or at least _I_ did. 

She noticed that his mouth was twitching, as if he was trying not to laugh. A turn allowed her to see Harry and Ron at the edge of the dance floor, watching intently. She sighed. 

"Don't tell me that you have money riding on dancing with me as well." 

He blinked. 

"Money?" 

"From the look that Hyacinth gave Minerv... I mean Professor McGonagall, I thought they had a bet going." 

There was a suppressed snort. 

"Very possibly. To answer your question, no, there's no money on this." He paused. "It was a simple dare." 

Hermione jerked her head up suddenly, losing the beat and nearly stumbling. 

"They actually did that?" That was so typical of them. "Just wait until the next potions class...." 

"Concentrate on your dancing, Miss Granger. My feet are too exposed in these sandals to risk a miscalculation." 

She dutifully concentrated. 

Dancing with Snape was not at all like dancing with Hooch, she decided. For one thing, the feel of him - well, her - under her hands was quite different. Hooch was solid, muscular, square. Snape - she - was soft and tangibly curved. He followed her very well, responding to the pressure of her fingers on his shoulder blade, indicating the moves she wanted him to take. He inclined very slightly towards her, body moving in time and rhythm. She doubted that anyone else would notice - she hoped not; it would have been too out of character for both of them to be dancing that closely. 

And yet... there was some part of her that wanted to relax into him, to close the short distance between them even more, to guide with (or should that be _be guided by_?) more than just hands and fingers; to use her whole body to direct him. This feeling of gentle control was heady, intoxicating, just as was the sensation of his warmth, tickling at the edge of her senses, the floral perfumes wafting almost imperceptibly over her, tantalising and seductive. She wondered what it would be like to rest her head on his shoulder, to let her body take over and simply respond to the music and the warmth and the scents; to feel his breath brushing her hair, his lips.... and felt a now uncomfortably familiar tightening sensation in her balls. 

Reality reasserted itself with vigour. 

This was _not_ a suitable thing to be thinking about a teacher - or was it about herself? Another paradox to be filed in the To Be Dealt With Later part of her mind. Apart from anything else, she reminded herself sternly, their current height difference would make resting anything on his shoulder problematic at best. 

She physically withdrew as much as she could and dropped the remaining contact as soon as the music ended. She thanked him shortly, looking at a place somewhere over his shoulder, not trusting herself to meet his eyes. His own response was equally brusque, taking his leave claiming that Harry and Ron would be waiting for him. 

That had to be the first time in his life that he had ever expressed any positive desire for the boys' company, she thought. Her mouth twisted. You had to see the irony in the whole situation really. Snape using Harry and Ron as an escape route. And she; she who had been concerned that Snape was an _inappropriate choice of love object_ for Miss Lacock, was now fantasising about that self same object. 

If they hadn't been in public she would have groaned aloud. What a hell of a mess. 

She ventured a glance at his face, wondering if he was finding this whole thing as difficult, not to mention confusing, as she was. The normally expressive eyes were dark and unreadable. She was willing to bet that meant that he wasn't. 

Well, it was about time he did, she thought savagely. 

"Yes, indeed you must return to your companions, if only to demonstrate that once again you have suffered no lasting harm." She paused. "Oh, and incidentally, Miss Granger, Madam Hooch thinks that this term you've blossomed into a _charming_ young woman." 


	24. Nature Has Blessed Him With An Oblivious...

**The Fire and the Rose Part 24**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

_A charming young woman_. He was never going to live this down; and it would get out - not before he and Hermione had swapped back again, but Snape was absolutely certain that the staff would find out eventually. It was too good a tale for Dumbledore to resist once the danger was past. He would trust the Headmaster with his life, but trusting him with his sanity was probably too much to ask. 

Snape half-walked, half-stumbled back to the Gryffindor common room, head buzzing with ideas and incipient nightmares. Privately amused at Hermione's tactic of 'being nice'; definitely the most disconcerting option she could have constructed when dealing with Hooch. The woman probably had no idea what was going on - and too little knowledge of Potions to suspect Polyjuice. Besides, he thought with a grimace, who would _want_ to be Snape. 

Hermione was making a surprisingly good job of being Snape; time and observation had made it obvious that his life was not, perhaps, so far from her day to day reality. The sarcasm and short temper were, he thought, not much of an exaggeration of her personality - one she kept well-hidden from her peers. His own sarcasm and short temper had been muted as he had kept them as well-hidden as she; a burst of alcohol-fueled introspection made him wonder whether he was becoming the person he would have been had he not succumbed to Slytherin peer pressure. 

He reached the door to his room and stumbled through it, muttering _nox aeterna_ to the door just before he fell into it. He fell, instead, onto the bed as Crookshanks jumped neatly from the covers and re-settled on a nearby chair. 

The last thought re-echoed through his mind and he snorted with laughter. He had had _far_ too much to drink if he thought his personality would have developed into that of an 18-year old girl. 

Not just any 18-year old girl, prompted some vaguely sober part of his brain. 

Snape shook his head and pulled himself back to his feet, shedding clothes as he headed for the bathroom. It was far too late to begin conversations with himself. 

The bathroom mirror reflected the sight of a naked tall, slender, girl - a sight he still found rather disconcerting. No matter what his subconscious brought up, he did not feel female. And he definitely did not feel like a teenager. He splashed his face with cold water, hoping to shock some sense back into himself. It worked, after a fashion, and he felt slightly more in control of himself and his thoughts; he also felt more awake which had not been the point at all. 

A bath, he thought vaguely. That would send him to sleep. He had largely avoided the myriad bath lotions and potions, preferring to shower quickly. It gave less time for thought and consequences but, now, he was just tired enough not to give thought to the consequences. 

A couple of quick commands and he had a bath of steaming, eucalyptus-scented, water in front of him. 

He stepped in, sinking into the water with some primeval sense of relaxation and belonging. In the quiet distance of night he heard the bell chime the hour. It was three in the morning, he noted, too relaxed to care. 

Unthinkingly, he brushed one hand down over himself, as though brushing the evening away; his fingers caught and rubbed a nipple and he gasped, arching softly with a sudden, tired, arousal. He blinked, at once drowsy and alert, and caught sight of himself in the mirror on the back of the door. A young woman - and definitely a woman - looked back, wet and slightly disheveled, hair tumbling around a long neck and elegant collarbones. 

Snape watched the woman - himself, he knew, but right now preferred not to know - raise her hand to her breast again, kneading lightly then pinching and rubbing the nipple; he was caught, fascinated by the sight and dissociated enough from reality to stare and reach between his legs for something that wasn't there. He found, instead, an aching nub - and that, right now, would do. One hand below the water, another on his breasts, he brought himself to climax watching Hermione in the mirror. And in that moment, it was Hermione that he was watching; he was, in his over-stimulated imagination, back in his own body and watching her think of him. 

Reality intruded eventually in the form of cooling water; Snape pulled himself from the bath and dried off, resolutely refusing to look in the mirror or look at himself. For tonight, he would keep the fantasy. He fell asleep, wondering just when it was that Hermione had become so important to him. 

Morning came far too quickly; not enough sleep, too much alcohol and introspection. Term was finished - the best thing about the Yule Ball was that it ensured that no-one need think of school again for a few weeks, teachers and students alike. Snape woke with the sun pouring in through the window, a low bright winter sun starkly golden in the mid-winter sky. 

Last night's thought crowded in on him and, equally rapidly, were pushed away. Time enough to consider all that later, if the need ever arose. Snape groaned, as much at the thought of moving as at the unintentional pun. Still, he was awake now and the best thing to do was surely to move - to find something to do, to occupy himself. 

Washed and dressed, in black jeans and a black sweater, Snape left the room and prowled downstairs. The common room was empty, the rest of the year either packing or still sleeping off the Ball, so he wandered out into the corridors; he nodded absently to the Fat Lady as she wished him 'good day'. 

The corridors were almost as empty as the common room, with the ghosts more numerous than the students. At the foot of Gryffindor Tower, McGonagall looked at Snape faintly oddly as he stalked past her. He recollected himself enough to turn, smile and make some excuse about needing to check on his Potions project. McGonagall clearly accepted the excuse, nodding and wishing him a good day as he moved away. 

Turning excuse into action, Snape headed for the dungeons. Passing the door to the Slytherin common room, he found himself face to face with Alice Lacock. The girl was hurrying, head down, and nearly ran into him. She gasped momentarily, then the horror on her face cleared as she realised who she had almost walked into. 

"Um, Hermione, I'm sorry. I was just ..." 

Snape swallowed the inclination to yell at her. 

"Perhaps you could pay a little more attention to where you're going in future, Miss Lacock." 

"I will, I will, I'm sorry, I was just ... I need ... could I come and talk to you again, please? I need to talk to someone, and ..." The child's voice trailed off; Snape sighed. It was all too clear why she wanted to talk to him; and he had little choice. The Head Girl was supposed to be available to the female students for counseling when she had time - and it was the holidays, so too much work would not do as an excuse. Perhaps, though, he could do something about talking her out of this. 

"Tomorrow, Alice - you're staying on over the holidays aren't you?" At the girl's nod, he continued. "Then tomorrow afternoon at 3pm. I'll be in Hogsmeade this afternoon, so it'll have to be tomorrow." 

Harry and Ron had finally cornered Snape into going to Hogsmeade, protesting that he could not possibly have too much to do in the holidays; he had agreed rather reluctantly, although amused by Ron's clear triumph at having come up with what he obviously believed to be an unmissable treat - they would let him go to the bookshop whilst they went to look at Quidditch supplies. Snape reminded himself to tell Hermione; she would appreciate it. 

Now, in the corridor, Alice Lacock nodded. "Thank you, that's great." She heaved a sigh and headed back to the common room. Snape wondered where she had been heading before she was distracted by encountering the Head Girl. Probably in the same direction as himself, he thought as he strode off to the Potions classroom. 

The room was empty when he arrived, the hazy winter sun picking its way through the dust motes to arc the hours across the floor. His current experiment on the Longbottom miracle was simmering slowly in a corner, bubbles occasionally rising and bursting on the surface. It seemed slow, infected with the holiday sluggishness that crept through the school when the students left. Snape was simply staring at the shimmering surface of the liquid when Hermione came into the room. His head snapped up when he heard her tread on the floorboards and the creak of the door to his rooms. 

"Good morning," she said, voice low and quiet. She hadn't had coffee yet, he thought. Neither had he, come to that. A deficit that was soon remedied as Hermione held out a mug to him. Black and fragrant, steam curling into the cool air of the dungeon room; Snape nodded his thanks and took a sip, watching Hermione drink her own coffee as he did so. Last nights' thoughts came back to him in full measure as he studied her. He tried to look lost in thought when he realised she was watching him stare at her. An eyebrow quirked in amusement; his studied nonchalance wasn't very successful apparently. 

"Well, you're not yelling at me, so it can't be something very serious," she said eventually. "Using the holidays to assert your personality a bit?" 

Snape wondered what on earth she was talking about. 

"It would seem, Miss Granger, that last night's festivities were too much for you. You're not making any sense." 

The amusement turned to a lop-sided grin. 

"Your clothes, Severus. Basic black, very flattering. Not quite as many buttons as you're used to. What happened, did you decide that as we're out of term you could revert to type? You should get away with it; I don't usually wear all black, but there's a first time for everything." 

Snape wondered, for a moment, whether the potion was breaking down. Hermione sounded more like ... well, like Hermione, than she had done for some time. The fact that she had called him by his first name escaped him for the moment. He would remember, and wonder, later whilst in the midst of a mug of butterbeer. For now, though, he found himself glad that she seemed less strained than she had done for a while. 

"No classes," he said. 

Hermione nodded, apparently understanding the thought-train that had prompted that comment. 

"Exactly; days where I don't need to worry about someone asking a question I can't answer. Time to study without having to prepare lessons as well; and you don't need to come up with elaborate excuses about the difficulty of your Potions project." 

Snape nodded with an off-hand "quite" as he turned back to the experiment. He remembered the feeling; it had been years since he worried about not having answers, but having time to work without classes was a fresh advantage every time. 

The morning passed quietly, punctuated by more coffee, measured stages of experimentation and a studied avoidance of Hermione's occasional quizzical glances. Snape wondered, as he stirred the potion, why he wasn't feeling more guilty, more stained, by his early morning fantasies. Lunch arrived before any answers came to him and he made his way to the Hall, feeling guilty about not feeling guilty. 

Caught in that rather complicated series of emotions, Snape had no chance of avoiding Harry and Ron when they caught up with him and dragged him off to Hogsmeade. 

Snape lagged slightly behind as they crunched through the new fall of snow that had blanketed the grounds just before dawn, listening idly to the banter between the two boys. He heard his name mentioned, suddenly, in a note of glee, just as Ron turned around; Snape braced himself for another character assassination. He did, from time to time, wonder whether Dumbledore had planned all this as a way to ensure that his ego was kept in check - although he thought that it could hardly be said to run rampant. 

"What's up with you, anyway, Hermione? You finally seen the light?" 

Snape frowned. 

"What are you talking about, Ron?" 

"You haven't defended Snape once this term - thought maybe you'd finally realised all the defence in the world wouldn't make him any less of a greasy git. We'll have you cursing him before the year is out - well, maybe," added Ron hastily. Some of Snape's temper was clearly showing through Hermione's face. "Sorry I spoke; just wondered why you hadn't told us to shut up about him like you usually do." 

And _that_ was an interesting thought. Hermione usually defended him? Well, if there was something Snape hadn't anticipated, it was that he would be less supportive of "Snape" than Hermione was. 

In the end he just shrugged. "What's the point? You haven't stopped abusing the man in six years, why would you change in the seventh?" He forced a half-smile to his face, and it seemed to be enough to satisfy the boy. Ron turned back to Harry, and Snape heard the conversation pick up again. Something about Slytherin and Quidditch - probably scandalous and certainly inaccurate. 

Harry and Ron did, to his surprise, stick to their word - they left him to the bookshop and scurried off to Wood's, the Quidditch supply store. He had no illusions that they might have accompanied him to the bookshop, but he had expected to be hauled off to Wood's, if only to provide an admiring audience. Hermione clearly had them well-trained, thankfully. 

He spent the afternoon browsing, curled up in a dusty corner between high shelves; if the shopkeeper wondered why the Hogwarts Head Girl was immersed in the Potions section, he gave no indication. Perhaps it wasn't that unusual; it was, after all, academic and she was undoubtedly well-read in Potions as in every other subject; a touch too well-read for comfort at times. 

Snape was eventually drawn away from the books by Harry and Ron, insisting that they had to go to the Three Broomsticks. Snape had rather hoped that they would have grown out of a taste for butterbeer but, unfortunately, they hadn't. 

He almost choked on the drink when Harry casually reminded him that Sirius would be collecting them to take her and Ron to the Burrow for Christmas next week. 


	25. Dog Day Afternoon

**The Fire and the Rose Part 25**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Hermione was minding her own business in the Potions Room, enjoying the luxury of studying without the pressure of maintaining her dual identity and keeping a desultory eye on the latest of their attempts to determine the precise cause of their predicament. Even though she knew that their situation wouldn't last forever - the mandrakes would eventually mature - she was as keen as Snape to see the frustrating mixture reduced to a list of ingredients, a set of instructions and a readily comprehensible formula. It might turn out to be useful, yes, but more than that, she simply wanted to _know_. 

As it happened the research had reached the _leave to simmer on a low heat for twenty four hours_ point, so it was occupying very little of her attention. The greater part of her mind was devouring the latest issue of _Artis Auriferae_ hoping to get through it before Snape returned and repossessed what was, technically, his property. 

The thought of Snape made her glance at the clock and wonder where he was. He had gone to lunch in the Great Hall but she had taken advantage of her position and popped down to the kitchens to get a tray of food from the house-elves. It was now half past five, and it had been dark for a couple of hours. She didn't like to speculate about the state of his temper if he had spent all that time in the company of Harry and Ron. 

Her mouth twitched briefly at the thought, humour warring with faint relief that he, rather than she, was being subjected to an earnest discussion on the competing merits of various broomstick varnishes. 

As if the thought had precipitated the event, the door to the room opened with a bang to admit a mutinous looking Head Girl, displaying all the symptoms of someone who needed to offload a significant amount of stress. 

Hermione put down the parchment she was holding and waited for him to say something. 

He stalked over to the experiment and glared at it accusingly for a few moments. 

"It's been simmering all afternoon," she remarked, "I haven't touched it. I've just been sitting here reading." 

"Well, I'm glad that at least one of us has had a productive afternoon," was the response. 

"I gather that the trip the Hogsmeade was a little trying." 

He turned to face her. 

"Well now, let me see... I have been forcefed butterbeer." His nose wrinkled as he ticked off the points on his fingers. "I was spared a trip to Wood's Quidditch Supplies, but the experience was described to me in such loving detail that I barely feel the loss. As my reward Mr Potter and Mr Weasley _allowed_ me to visit the bookshop." 

She couldn't help it; she could feel her mouth forming a wholly unsympathetic grin. 

"I have now returned to Hogwarts to form the object of your entertainment and amusement. How could I not be overcome with joy?" 

"They can be a little much when they get on to Quidditch, can't they?" she said, managing to get some sympathy into her voice even if her face still didn't seem to want to cooperate. 

"_A little_," he said wryly. "I had no idea that it was possible to talk at such length about robes. It appears that the Chudley Cannons have had their robes redesigned by someone called Philomena Plinge. Opinion is divided as to the merits of Madam Plinge's skills. Mr Weasley considers that she has toned down the shade of orange and altered the dimensions of the cannon ball motif to the severe detriment of the traditional appearance. His views on the change from a serif to a sans serif font on the monogram do not bear repetition. Mr Potter, however, is unconcerned by the sartorial aspects of the question. He fears that the scalloping of the hemline, along with the new decorative topstitching, will significantly increase the chances of a dangerous twig entanglement incident. Further, he is firmly convinced the the widening of the cuff aperture combined with the new three-quarter length sleeve, will pose insurmountable aerodynamic difficulties for even the most skilled of Seekers. In short, they are agreed that the management of the Cannons has committed a hideous misjudgment and, what is worse, the new robes are _"girly"_." 

Hermione had to put her hand over her mouth during this diatribe. If it hadn't been Snape, she would have suspected him of playing to the gallery. 

"I think," he concluded with a sigh, "that Mr Potter and Mr Weasley discussing Quidditch may _actually_ be worse that Miss Brown and Miss Patil exchanging beauty tips. I confess that I am unable to comprehend how you have got through six and a half years of school without hexing your house-mates into silence at least once." 

Hermione shrugged a little diffidently. 

"You learn to filter it out after a while." 

He looked at her and she thought he was going to say something else but instead he just folded his arms. 

"And that's not all," he continued. "I discovered another _interesting_ snippet of information in The Three Broomsticks." He paused. "I gather that I have plans to spend Christmas with the Weasley family." 

Hermione stiffened in mixed shock and guilt. She had totally forgotten the arrangement, made over the summer between Molly Weasley and her parents, that she should spend the Christmas period at the Burrow. She had remembered right at the beginning, when she had still believed that they would easily resolve their situation before it became an issue. And then the need to be Snape had taken over, and she had gradually immersed herself in the role to such an extent that her life as _Hermione_ had taken on a sense of unreality. She didn't know whether she felt guilty for forgetting to tell Snape, or shocked that she had lost that much of her sense of self. 

Now that she had been reminded, there was another fact that he wasn't going to like. 

"Not only that," he continued, "I am also told that we are all to be escorted there by Sirius Black." 

_Ah. So he knew that as well._

In the course of her stint as Head of Slytherin she had discovered that the freedom - and, indeed, innocence - of Sirius Black had become something of an open secret amongst the staff. However, she had never directly canvassed Snape's opinion on the subject. 

"Um...," she began, not quite knowing how to address him. That morning she had teasingly called him _Severus_. This did not feel like a teasing moment. But to call him _Professor_ would make her feel too much like a supplicant. That would be out of character for him. It was also, she had to admit, out of character for the person that she was beginning to discover inside herself. 

Fortunately, he seemed to anticipate what she was about to say. 

"You have no need to worry, Hermione. Much as I dislike Black I will not summon the Aurors at the first sight of him." He paused, long enough for her to register that he had used her given name and that his tone was gentler than she would have expected. "However," he said, with some emphasis, "it would have been helpful to know that information _before_ I choked on my butterbeer." 

"I'm sorry," she said contritely. "What with everything else it went out of my head. I was hoping that we... you...." She gestured at the ongoing experiment, uncomfortably aware that she sounded too much like the old Hermione and that it didn't suit Snape at all. 

If he noticed he didn't comment on it. 

"Yes, well," he said wearily, "I suppose there's no way of getting out of the trip?" 

She shook her head. 

"My mum and Mrs Weasley arranged it last summer. I'm not booked to stay in school and there aren't any consent forms signed. If you don't go there you'll have to go home... to _my_ home," she clarified. 

She thought about it. The Burrow might actually be easier for him. He had already managed to fool Harry and Ron at school and she didn't think that any of the other Weasleys knew her any better. He would probably manage to get lost in the general chaos. She pointed this out to him and he nodded reluctantly and then looked a little uncomfortable. 

"Does this mean that I have to take...," he hesitated slightly, "gifts of some description?" 

She almost smiled again. 

"Yes," she said, enjoying the sight of him visibly trying to conceal his apprehension at the thought. After another moment, she took pity on him. "You don't need to worry about it. Sirius isn't coming for a few days. I'll find some time to go shopping and get the things for you to take. I need to get something for my parents anyway." 

"I wasn't worried about it," he said sharply. "I have simply never needed to give any thought to Potter or Weasley's personal tastes." 

She decided to let the lie pass without observation. The idea of Snape being forced to give Harry Potter a Christmas present was reward enough in itself. 

He unfolded his arms and headed over to the work area. A few minutes later he returned to Hermione, holding two mugs of hot coffee. She took one of them, wondering at the fact that he had just made her one without asking first. She sipped carefully, watching him, waiting for his next move. 

He drank from his mug and then sighed again. 

"As if that all wasn't bad enough, I have the pleasure of a _woman to woman_ talk with Miss Lacock tomorrow afternoon." 

Hermione began to smile again at his long-suffering tone. 

"Maybe she'll confess that she's found someone else," she suggested, with a hint of mischief. 

"The gods are not that kind to me," he replied tartly. "I will doubtless have to endure a hour of hearing how _sweet_ and, no doubt, _misunderstood_ I am." 

She tried to stifle the new grin that was threatening her features. She put down her coffee and headed over to the front of the classroom to collect something from the desktop. 

"I suppose that means that you won't want to see _this_ then." She handed the item over to him, studying his face carefully. "I found it on the desk after I came back from the kitchens with my lunch." 

It was a Christmas card. 

It was about 8 inches by 10 inches and the front of it was taken up with a picture of a small, tousled puppy with large appealing brown eyes. It was wearing a red velvet Santa hat which fell forwards over one eye and one ear flopped out from under the white fur brim. The puppy had a red and green tartan bow round its neck and was playfully jumping in and out of a half wrapped gift box, joyfully crumpling the green and silver paper. It had a green velvet ribbon in its mouth, clearly once part of the wrapping. Above was an elaborate wreath, to which was fastened a large sprig of mistletoe. 

Snape's face defied description. 

He opened the card with the care of a Gringott's Curse Breaker faced with a particularly suspicious tomb. 

"To Professor Snape," he read in a strangled voice. "Thank you for everything that you've done for me. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a fabulous New Year. With love from Alice." 

Hermione waited as the various emotions played across his face. 

"'_Everything_' is underlined," he said eventually, in a curiously numb tone. "_Three_ times. I don't think I have ever seen that many exclamation marks in one place before. And there are x's all over the bottom." 

"Kisses," remarked Hermione, helpfully. "They're supposed to be kisses." 

She tried to feel guilty about teasing him like that, but this was too much fun. 

Snape looked as if she had just announced that she had devised a new Unforgivable Curse. 

"I need to have a serious talk with Miss Lacock." He glared at her. "And you, _Miss Granger_, are deriving so much enjoyment from this that I have to question the accuracy of the Sorting Hat." 

"At least she didn't put cute spelling mistakes in." 

"There is no such thing as a _cute_ mistake," he pointed out acidly. 

She swallowed her incipient laughter, producing a noise somewhere between a snort and a choke. He gave her another filthy look and rolled his eyes. 

"Between Sirius Black and Miss Lacock, I am obviously destined to be surrounded by dogs this Christmas." She could tell that the news about Sirius still rankled with him, despite his earlier assurances. Something obviously also occurred to Snape at that point, because he shot another, rather uncomfortable, look in her direction. "I suppose that Black is a friend of yours," he added grudgingly. 

Sirius was Harry's godfather and therefore a friend by proxy. Hermione had never had any very close acquaintance with him beyond that. She pointed that out to Snape and added neutrally, "Harry's always been a bit short on family who care enough to take an interest in him." 

Snape muttered something that she couldn't quite catch, but something impelled her to continue speaking; to add a thought that had crossed her mind, but which she could never voice to Harry or Ron, worshipping Sirius as they both did. 

"Mind you," she said reflectively, "I always did get the impression that he was the sort of person who would think that sticking your nose in someone's crotch was an appropriate form of greeting." 

There was a beat's silence as Snape simply stared at her, and then, abruptly, he began to laugh. It was a relaxed, natural sound; maybe the first time she had heard him sound genuinely happy. She joined in, half responding to the inherent humour, half grateful for the release of tension that had built up over the term. Looking over at him, she was suddenly caught by the warmth and unexpected openness in his eyes, and then there was something else there; an unexpected spark, a deepening that spoke of something else entirely. Something that that rendered the physical form an irrelevance; that made her feel as if she was seeing past the body and into the mind behind it - Snape's mind. She realised, with a lurch of vertigo, that although she had been looking at herself, she had only ever _seen_ Snape. 

It was a moment of perfect understanding. 

The laughter died on her lips and in that moment she noticed that Snape was quiet as well, motionless, studying her intently. She felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach, and elsewhere. Acting more on instinct that on any basis of rational thought she made a half movement towards him. Something flared again in his eyes, dark and deep and dangerous. 

_If I complete the step, will he stop me?_

This was more than she wanted to deal with right now. 

She broke the eye contact at the same time as he took a step back. The charged atmosphere shifted to become simply uncomfortable. Snape muttered something under his breath and hastily left the room. 

__ 

Hermione sat in Snape's rooms, wearing Snape's clothes and surrounded by Snape's belongings. One of Snape's books was open on her lap, and there was a mug of coffee by the chair, made from Snape's supplies and served in one of Snape's mugs. The Hermione part of the room was relegated to part of the large table and some space cleared on one of the bookcases. She was telling herself that she was reading but what she was actually doing was trying to stand back from whatever had passed between them that afternoon; something that she was finding increasingly difficult to do, given that she was buried in the need to be the very person that she was attempting to detach from. 

Despite Snape's reservations about the Sorting Hat, Hermione was not the sort to shy away from facing up to things. Sometimes she needed a little time to order her thoughts, but it resulted in analysis of the situation not evasion of the reality. And the reality was that she was attracted to Snape. She already knew about the body; she had explored that with sufficient enthusiasm over recent months. And she'd been enjoying his mind for... well, that had developed a little more subtly, she had to admit. But the evenings spent working together, or picking at the other's performance or just giving her the chance to be herself - somewhere in the course of those she had begun valuing his company for its own sake. 

This afternoon had been notable for the fact that for the first time she felt that he had spoken to her, not merely as an equal, but as a friend. He had complained and she had teased, and it had felt completely natural, even down to his glares and bad temper. She supposed that when they returned to their own bodies they would also have to return to their old relationship; he, the distant and surly teacher, she, the eager student and Head Girl. And she felt a real pang of loss at the thought. 

She shook her head. 

It was all well and good accepting that you were attracted to your teacher. You could even admit that you would sorely miss his companionship when this forced intimacy was over. That was something that involved her alone and she could and would deal with it. But what if he appeared to share the attraction? 

That was a trickier problem. She tried again for detachment, to think about it analytically, but her mind was constantly diverted by the memory of the look in his eyes, that intense concentration. She wondered what it would be like to have that attention entirely directed at her. Butterflies began in her stomach and she shut her eyes, imagining having taken that step, having stepped into the circle of that focus, touching.... 

Almost without conscious thought her hand moved down, deftly flicking two or three buttons open, and snaking through the fabric to stroke herself between her legs. Body had followed mind, because she was already half hard before she grasped herself. Running her hand along she tried to imagine doing it to him, whilst he touched her. Her left hand moved up her chest to work its way inside and rub one nipple. What would it be like if he was doing it to her? Did he do it to her body? The image formed itself in her mind; his hand between her legs, caressing her, thinking of her.... Would he want her to do this to him? Would it feel as good to him as it did to her right now? 

Caught on a wave of fantasy and lust, her mind touching his body, his mind touching her body, she stroked harder, thrusting her hips up towards her hand until the lines blurred even further and she came to a shuddering climax. She lay back in the chair, not bothering to move, not even bothering to uncurl her hand from her penis, until she was disturbed by a scratching noise at the window. 

Her first hazy thought was that Snape had somehow discovered what she was doing. Her next thought was that he would come in through the door. She moved her hand, and her third thought was to realise that in losing herself in the ever decreasing circles of attraction, she had neglected to undress properly and her robes now had a distinctly sticky patch at the front. She wiped her hand clean on the fabric as well, reasoning that the robes were destined for the wash anyway. Tucking herself away, she stood and walked curiously over to the window. 

It was an owl, which was odd, because she had never known Snape to receive post other than at breakfast with everyone else. In fact she had never known him to receive personal letters at all. She opened the window and a small brown owl hopped inside. It looked at her with a hopeful expression that reminded her of the puppy on Alice's Christmas card. She released the message from its leg and managed to find something for it to eat. She unrolled the parchment and her heart dropped like a stone. 

_Snape. I have to find Snape. Now_

She was oblivious to the owl finishing its snack and taking off again through the open window. She retained just enough presence of mind to change into a clean set of robes before she left, and to keep her pace through the castle down to a purposeful stride. She presumed that he would be in Gryffindor Common Room or the Head Girl's rooms. Probably the latter, she thought. She rather suspected that the afternoon would have exhausted his Harry/Ron tolerance levels. She forced her mind to work; there was actually a concealed route that came out very close to the Head Girl's rooms. She had only ever used it that once, with Snape; explanations would be too difficult if she had been discovered. But now, she thought, she could decently plead an emergency. 

She retraced her steps, back past the Potions Room, to a stretch of blank wall. One charm and several staircases later, she was outside the door of her old rooms, feeling unaccountably like a guest and oddly reluctant to knock. Only the parchment clutched in her hand gave her courage to to do. 

He opened the door, clearly surprised to see her there. That was in character, although she felt the muttered "Oh, it's you," was less so. 

"Miss Granger, I need to speak to you," she said, for the benefit of any stray eavesdroppers. 

"You'd better come in," he said, a little ungraciously. 

It was the first time that she had been back since the accident had happened, and it felt distinctly strange to see the things that she knew were hers under the control of someone else. It was not an entirely comfortable feeling and she had a stray moment of empathy for Snape, who had had to spend more time watching her live in his space. The door shut behind them both and then he turned to face her. 

"What's happened?" he asked shortly. 

In response she handed him the parchment. 

"What do I do?" she asked, trying not to sound to anxious. "Is there any way I can get out of it?" 

The contents of the letter were etched on her mind. 

_Dear Severus, _

I have good news for you.   
Your father and I will be at home over Christmas, so we are looking forward to you coming to visit us. Do let us know when you will be arriving. We thought that the 23rd might be convenient for you.   
With love 

Mother. 


	26. Walking In A Winter Wonderland

**The Fire and the Rose Part 26**

_Disclaimer: Anyone and anything you recognise belongs to J K Rowling; the story, however, is ours_

_This fic is also to be found at the DarkSarcasm Yahoo group - if you want e mail notification of updates, this is the best way to get them. The group can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/darksarcasm. New episodes of this fic will be posted late every Saturday night UK time (and there will be 40 episodes in total, so look out for episodes each week from now until mid-December!). Please do not ask for more frequent updates. The authors have lives and other fics to write :)_

MetroVampire & Rhosymedre 

Snape was still grinning inwardly at Hermione's reaction to his mother's letter when a knock sounded on the door to his rooms. For a moment, when he had seen her at the door the previous evening, he had thought she had been summoned by Voldemort; then he realised that she had bothered to knock, so it was highly unlikely that whatever she sought him for had anything to do with the Dark Lord. Not even Hermione was likely to be overly concerned with propriety or the niceties of convention at such a time. 

His mother's letter was, admittedly, slightly startling. His parents generally spent the winter overseas - it only took a few hours at their house to understand why, and his father's arthritis had shown no inclination to improve, no matter what potions he was dosed with. Snape was reasonably sure he actually poured the potions away, preferring to play the martyr, but that was no longer anything to worry about. He had, eventually, told Hermione as much; it had been so long since he had seen his parents for more than the most fleeting of visits that it was highly unlikely that they would notice any difference in her portrayal of him. As long as she kept her head in a book, or took long walks, they would notice nothing amiss. 

He suddenly realised that someone had knocked twice on his door; a hesitant rap, and clearly not Hermione again. 

"Come in". He raised his voice just enough to make sure that whoever it was heard him. Crookshanks looked balefully at him at the unexpected sound, then rested his head back onto his paws and went to sleep again. 

The door creaked open and a young girl's head poked round. Alice Lacock. Snape almost groaned; he had forgotten that she was coming to talk to him this afternoon. This was not something he wanted to have to deal with; he remembered the puppy on the card and shuddered. 

"Is this alright, Hermione? You said this afternoon - should I come back later?" 

Oh, the temptation to send her away ... 

"No, no, this is fine - come in." He watched her enter, staring around again; it had been a while since she had last come for counselling - and that had been _before_. Before he had realised just what horror she represented for him. 

"You can sit over there," he indicated the other armchair. "Would you like some tea?" The child nodded once she had sat down. 

"Yes please," she said quietly. 

As delaying tactics went, this one was useless - he had only just made some tea so it only took a matter of seconds to hand a mug to the girl. 

"How are you doing? I understand things are better with your family." Snape broke the silence that had descended as they both sipped at their tea, staring at the fire crackling in the grate. 

"Oh yes, much better, thank you. Everything is great! I mean, well, not perfect or I would have been able to go home for Christmas, but it's all going much better. And I like being in school over the holidays; it means I can keep people company who might be lonely otherwise." 

Snape had a ghastly feeling he knew exactly who it was that she was keen to keep company with. 

"I went to see if Professor Snape was in this morning, for example. But he wasn't in his rooms. Do you know if he stays for the holidays?" 

The ghastly feeling was confirmed. 

"I would imagine," he said carefully, "that all the teachers have their own lives which they continue with away from school. Professor Snape is _no different_ from the other teachers." 

"Yes, exactly!" That wasn't the answer he was quite expecting, but the elaboration came quickly. "Everyone thinks he's so mean and nasty but he's not; he just wants us to learn - so he's just like all the other teachers, but no-one else seems to understand that. I think he's wonderful." 

Curiosity won Snape's inner battle. 

"Why do you think he's wonderful? If he's just like all the other teachers?" 

"Well, they are all wonderful, of course. Although I'm not quite sure about Professor Hooch. She keeps yelling at me, just because I can't fly very well, but you see I don't like the height and it makes me dizzy. I don't understand how people can play Quidditch - all that height and speed and ..." 

And Snape let her ramble on over her tea, wondering whether she would ever come back to the point. Eventually - and via a very circuitous route, during which Snape mentally reviewed the experiments he and Hermione had so far conducted on Longbottom's Inadvertent Infusion, she did return to his original question. 

"And so Professor Snape _understands_ you see; he seems to know just what we need, and he's ... well ..." 

At this point, Alice broke off and blushed, scarlet. Snape had an appalling presentiment, which took little time to proved entirely correct. 

"Well ... you won't tell anyone?" she asked when she spoke again. Snape shook his head. 

"No, I won't tell anyone; whatever you say to me is confidential." As if he was going to repeat this conversation to anyone. Anyone at all. 

"Well, he's awfully good-looking, don't you think?" 

Thought was about the last thing that Snape wanted, particularly that sort of thought. No, he was not awfully good-looking, and he knew it. What on _earth_ this child saw in him, he didn't know. Didn't want to know - he was becoming increasingly convinced that she must have some sort of hormonal disorder, and he could feel fear crawl along his spine. Not particularly because of her crush; a few well placed words should deal with that. No, he was rather more concerned about what she might have been saying in the common room. If Malfoy Junior, for example, was to report to Daddy that a young girl was infatuated with him, things could get uncomfortable. 

"Have you told anyone else this?" he asked eventually. 

Alice shook her head, and he almost sagged with relief. 

"I thought I would be laughed at. No-one else sees him like I do." 

Clearly. 

"Well ..." he picked his way carefully through his words. "I think perhaps you should make sure that you spend time with those of your friends who are staying at schoool over these holidays - the teachers are not at all lonely; they have their own lives, about which we know nothing since we only see them in school, and I'm sure that you don't need to keep any of them company. No matter whether you think you might like to. Professor Snape, in particular, will have experiments to do which need to be done in silence and quiet; you won't be helping him by interrupting him." 

Snape thought he sounded hideously pompous, but telling the girl that she was mad would not help the situation. Much as he would like to. She looked a little mutinous at effectively being told to stay away from Snape, and he reminded himself to tell Hermione to snap at the girl if she showed her face again in the classroom before term started. 

He lead the conversation round to more mundane matters, asking how homework was going - usually guaranteed to bring any conversation to a close and in this, thankfully, Alice Lacock was no different to anyone else. She was gone and he was alone again within ten minutes. Snape sank into the blissful peace with a book and a fresh mug of tea; snow fell heavily outside the window and the room was warm and quiet, the silence broken only by the rustle of pages and the occasional snore from the ginger cat on his bed. 

Checking on the experiments that evening, he found out why Hermione had not been in the rooms when Alice Lacock had called that morning; a pile of wrapped presents sat on the corner of the desk in his living room and Hermione had been borrowing his jeans and sweater again. Just as well Alice hadn't seen him in _those_; even he had to admit that they suited him. Hermione must have noticed him look at her, and explained. 

"Those are the presents you're taking to the Burrow; I went out this morning to get them so that it was all done in plenty of time - and I used your Apparation licence again to make sure I wasn't seen, and went shopping in Oxford Street." She shuddered. "I hate crowds, and today was worse than crowds, but I thought it might be difficult to explain what I was doing with this sort of shopping if anyone saw me in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. There are a couple of things that I've ordered that should turn up by owl sometime in the next day or so - I got Harry another servicing kit for his broomstick and, believe me, that's not something you can get - not even in John Lewis." 

Snape assumed John Lewis must be some type of store, but had other things on his mind. 

"Two things," he said abruptly. "First, if Alice Lacock appears, tell her to go away and be sharp with her - I told her you were very busy with experiments and didn't have time to be interrupted, so please back me up. Second - what _are_ these things? Just so that I don't look entirely surprised when people open them!" 

Hermione smiled. "Good point. They're fairly straighforward. Molly and Ginny Weasley each have a velvet scarf from Libertys - pretty and vaguely practical. I've told you what I'm getting Harry. I've got Ron some Muggle sweets, since he thinks they're fun. I can't tell the difference between them and wizarding sweets but I don't have that much of a sweet tooth. I got a book for Arthur Weasley - it's a Muggle encyclopaedia, I thought it would interest him." Snape thought it would probably encourage the man more than he ought to be encouraged, but kept silent. "And I got a large Christmas cake as a general gift - it'll cover the twins, Charlie, Bill and Percy Weasley if they're home. I got Sirius a pair of gloves; he keeps losing his. I've sent my parents' presents directly to them as well, so you don't need to worry about any of it." 

Snape nodded, and they turned their attention back to the work in hand; the previous evening's awareness was still there between them, and work seemed to be the best way to diffuse it - or ignore it at least. 

It would have been too easy for the presents to be so readily dealt with. The day before Sirius was due to fetch them, Harry and Ron came thundering into Hermione's room. Snape looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow. 

"What's happened now?" he said in a resigned tone of voice. The boys looked slightly frantic; that usually meant trouble. 

"Presents - we need to get presents!" said Harry urgently. 

Ron chimed in. "We've been so busy we forgot - and anyway, you're better than we are finding the right thing for people! We've got to go to Hogsmeade _now_. Come on!" 

Snape looked at the snow outside and shuddered - not because of the snow, but simply at the thought of trying to shop for Weasleys. 

The boys took his silence for reluctance - correctly - and started to plead. "Hermione, please, you're our only hope!" 

"You've _got_ to help us!" 

That melodrama provoked another dubious look from Snape, and Ron had the grace to look sheepish. "Come on, Hermione, you know we're useless without you." 

"Can I have that in writing?" asked Snape drily. The boys laughed, and Snape rapidly found himself trudging through the foot-deep snow to Hogsmeade, trying to keep behind Harry and Ron and out of the lightly falling flakes. 

If not for the mission ahead - shopping was never a favoured pastime, unless it involved books and potions ingredients - it would have been a pleasant walk. The snow lay thick on the Scottish landscape around Hogwarts, blanketing the hills and fields so that the hedges and walls traced ethereal patterns in the blank white. Trees were silhoutted against the sky on the horizon, a sky that was patchwork white and brilliant blue as clouds eased across and down in flurries of snow. The sun broke through the clouds from time to time, scattering gold across the glittering ice of the lake. 

Hogsmeade was a scurry of shoppers; much as Hermione's Oxford Street must have been, thought Snape. Harry and Ron had not underestimated their clueless-ness when it came to Christmas shopping, though, which made the rest of the afternoon unnecessarily trying. If Hermione had not discussed her presents with him first, it would have been even more trying. They, at least, gave him some clue when the boys turned to him again and again. 

For Molly and Ginny, they bought bottles - clear glass with pewter embellishments; Snape volunteered to supply some of the bath potions that he had brewed for himself (and, it seemed, half the school). The elder Weasley boys would share a bag of Zonko's finest - although _finest_ was a relative term. Arthur Weasley proved more of a problem, until Snape remembered that there was a small shop selling Muggle curios in one of the backstreets; a suggestion met with rapturous delight from the boys. 

It was an odd shop, full of the most peculiar things; Harry commented that most of them wouldn't work without electricity - the owner, obviously keen to make a sale, pointed out that they could be charmed to work in a wizarding home. The problem, as ever, lay with Ron's budget; Harry was wincing at the prices of most of the items. 

Finally, though, Harry spotted a tub on one of the shelves and took it down with glee. "Ron, this is perfect - your Dad will love it. It's pure Muggle. Don't you think, Hermione?" He turned to Snape who tried not to look blank. 

"Oh, I forgot - your parents are into healthfoods aren't they? You've probably never had one of these - but don't you think Arthur will think it's cool?" He handed the tub to Snape; it rattled slightly. 

He looked at it curiously. "Pot Noodle" was written on the side; "Chicken'n'Mushroom flavour". Snape presumed it was some sort of food, and looked more closely at it. He found a list of ingredients and blanched - at least, he supposed this was food. The list read more like the ingredients for some Dark potion. 

"I'm sure Arthur will think it's wonderful", he said as he handed the box back to Harry, trying not to shudder. "At least, as long as he doesn't try to eat it." 

That last comment was a guess; he was getting more confident about trying guesses as to the right thing to say, both from experience and from listening to Hermione in the evenings as they worked together. He had guessed right, though, as Harry burst into laughter. Ron looked puzzled - nothing new there - until Harry spluttered and said he'd explain later. 

The last present was Sirius', and Harry and Ron needed no help with that; a bottle of Firewhisky was readily obtained. As they walked back to school, Snape was sorely tempted to break into the whisky - it was freezing, and the sky was uniformly covered in snow-laden clouds. It was almost entirely dark by the time they got to school; only the glows set out by Hagrid kept them on the right path. 

The rest of the week passed in a haze of experiments, snowball fights and reading. Hermione remarked that Alice Lacock had only put in one appearance - fortunately whilst Hermione _was_ working on something - and had been sent away without ceremony. Snape wondered whether she would come to him again for consolation and wasn't entirely certain that he was glad when she didn't; he hoped she wasn't particularly bottling it all up. The Slytherin prefects were all away for the holidays, or he would have checked with one of them - the girl's parents had been attacked recently enough for it to still be reasonable for the Head Girl to be concerned, especially over Christmas. 

All too soon, Snape found himself in the entrance to Hogwarts with Harry and Ron, facing a tall dark man. Sirius. Snape's hackles rose when Sirius leant down to kiss his cheek; it was the first kiss he had had to endure as Hermione, and frankly he prayed it was the last. A small, trecherous, voice suggested that perhaps he wouldn't object so violently if it was Hermione kissing him ... he quashed that thought ruthlessly. This was not the time to think about that. 

Pulled from the entrance through a portkey - a particularly chewed looking piece of wood - into the snow outside, Snape shuddered and sneezed at the change in temperature. A round of 'bless-you's later, he looked up to find that they had arrived at The Burrow. He hadn't seen the Weasley's house in decades, but it still looked like a triumph of wards over weather; how it all stayed together was a miracle. 

Molly Weasley bustled out to greet them, talking nineteen to the dozen and rounding them up and into the house. It was blessedly warm, with the fire roaring in the grate as they all sat around a table that undoubtedly stretched to accommodate them all. Snape lost count of Weasleys, even though he had taught all the younger ones, as they chattered countless cross-conversations. 

Suddenly, he froze. Molly had just announced that she would add Harry and Hermione to the clock for the next week or so, so that she could keep track of them - the clock in question hung on the wall, and presently had a cluster of hands all pointing to home. If the spell tracked minds, not bodies, he was doomed. Too quickly for him to find a reasonable objection, though, Molly had flicked her wand at the clock and muttered something - he hadn't caught the words, but he heaved a sigh of relief when one of the hands that appeared said "Hermione" and pointed to "home". It looked as though it merely tracked the physical presence, not the mental presence, since "school" was an option on the clock - and he knew that Hermione hadn't gone to his parents' house yet. 

No-one seemed to have noticed either that he was worried or his relief - not really surprisingly, as with this crowd he could almost be more anonymous than at school. 

And so it proved; the holiday passed in a round of presents and meals - the Weasleys clearly believed in holiday meals - and snowball fights. Snape was able to keep quiet for most of the time; no-one expected Hermione to be the centre of conversation and he was able to observe from the depths of a chair, sometimes behind the cover of a book. 

For all his snarled insults over the years to rile various Weasley children, he had a healthy respect for Arthur and Molly Weasley; he would not have chosen their path, but neither did he have their characters. The affection between the family members - often exasperated, but always clear - was almost tangible. The house was warm, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fires that lay lit in each grate. 

In the midst of that warmth, fussed over but given space, Snape wondered how Hermione was coping in the chill of his parents' house. 


End file.
